The Toyota driver carefully navigated through a trio of twisty asphalt stages - one affected by snow - with a 1m14.3s advantage over team-mate Sebastien Ogier.
World champion Kalle Rovanpera held onto third (+1m38.9s) to preserve a Toyota 1-2-3, ahead of Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi (+3m16.8s).
M-Sport’s Ott Tanak climbed to fifth while Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta completed an impressive clean sweep of stage wins to move to sixth. Katsuta ended the loop 3.6s behind Tanak and 33.7s adrift of fourth-placed Lappi.
Andreas Mikkelsen had started the day in fourth but slid to seventh ahead of fellow WRC2 runners Gregoire Munster and Nikolay Gryazin. Kajetan Kajetanowicz took over 10th spot after Heikki Kovalainen retired with a mechanical issue on stage 14.
Crews faced completely bone dry narrow and twisty roads for the afternoon loop which began with another success for home hero Katsuta.
Katsuta set a rapid pace through stage 13 (Nakuta Forest, 20.32km) to post a benchmark time 2.8s faster than Ogier, to claim his fifth stage win of the event to date.
It also marked the latest step of his comeback as the Japanese driver climbed to seventh ahead of Munster, who briefly stopped in the stage with a power issue.
Tanak also moved up the standings into sixth despite battling a misted-up windscreen during the stage, although this time it was caused by driver error, according to the Estonian.
Source: Autosport