Neuville held a 16.1s rally lead on Friday morning after early leader Sebastien Ogier suffered a wheel failure on his Toyota during stage 2, but the Belgian faced a stern challenge from Toyota’s Evans in the afternoon.
Neuville, piloting a Hyundai carrying a tribute to the late Craig Breen, witnessed his lead reduce to 5.7s over Evans heading into Saturday.
M-Sport-Ford's Ott Tanak completed the loop third overall, 30s adrift, with Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi sitting fourth a further 3.4s back.
Ogier managed to recover from his early trouble to sit fifth (+1m23.7s) ahead of Pierre-Louis Loubet, Takamoto Katsuta and world champion Kalle Rovanapra, who also lost more than two minutes to a wheel failure in stage 2.
After a morning run under clear skies, the clouds gathered for the afternoon. It prompted all of the crews barring Ogier, Evans and Rovanpera to take at least two wet compound tyres for the loop.
Ogier resumed his blistering pace from the morning to win stage 5, the first test of the afternoon, which was held in dry conditions.
The Frenchman took his fourth stage win of the rally by 4.8s from team-mate Evans, who made inroads into Neuville’s 16.1s rally lead, as the latter dropped 2.4s to the Welshman.
Source: Autosport