The French pair will start the third and final day of the Italian round half-a-second in front of their Toyota team-mat🧸es and title rivals, Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin.

Ogier and Evans ♎are both vying to be crowned World Rally champion for an eighth and first time respectively, although the picture is more favourable for Ogier.

Irrespective of ✱how Evans fares this weekend, a top-three finish will hand the Frenchman the crown on what is his last full season in the sport’s top division.

“It has been a funny day because the lead is changing all the time,”♍ said Ogier🍌, paying tribute to the tenacity and never-say-die character of Evans.

“I didn’t expect to regain the lead tonight because obviously, since the beginning of the rally, I am taking less risk and I am losing some ti🐼me.

“I now have that gap and I just need to cruise and manage the gap tomorrow,” he added. “If w♐e win it will be the cherry on the ca⭕ke but the target we are chasing for tomorrow is not really the rally win.”

Evans revealed that his speed and confidence on the ༺last Saturday stage had🌠 been hampered by the set-up of his car's headlights, with these not illuminating the areas of the stage he needed to see given how tight and precarious some parts were.

"It was a better af♚ternoon than morning, definitely, but I found the last one to be tricky," he said. "The lights seemed fine yesterday but tonight I just couldn't see anything. There are so many places you are turning late and t🍬he car is pointing in a completely different way.

"It was dif💞ficult, but of course it's the same for everyone," he added.

Rally Monza con🏅cludes tomorrow, with crews tackling three stages based around Monza Circuit, with the end-of-rally Power Stage bringing the curtain down on the 202𒈔1 World Rally Championship campaign.