Neuville started the morning sitting third but a stunning effort on stage nine, held in tricky frosty conditions, brought the Belgian into the victory fight.
He took 18.8s out of Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier to climb to second and was 9.6s quicker than rally leader Elfyn Evans.
Neuville then assumed the rally lead on stage 10, before extending that advantage to 5.1s come the end of the morning loop of stages.
“It [stage nine] felt good but it didn’t feel that good,” Neuville told Autosport.
“I didn’t expect to have such a big gap.
”I expected the others to do well as well, but I had good information this time compared to yesterday and that makes a difference clearly.
“We saw Ogier take 17 seconds out of me and 11 seconds in three kilometres because my pacenotes were too conservative. I guess that was difference this morning.”
Evans’ slide back to second was assisted by a hybrid failure in stage 10, although the Welshman confirmed the power returned for the following test.
“Of course, the first stage this morning was pretty difficult to judge, and it looks like Thierry did a good job,” Evans told Autosport.
Source: Autosport