Norway's Andreas Mikkelsen took charge of the Rally of Sweden on Friday after world champion Sebastien Ogier ran into windscreen wiper troubles.
Ogier, who also tops the world championship standings, was leading until his windscreen wipers stop working on the fifth of nine special stages.
He then also hit a wall of snow on the ninth special in which he lost 30 seconds.
It left him fourth overall at 24sec behind VW Polo teammate Mikkelsen with Belgian Thierry Neuville in second Norway's Mads Ostberg in third at both just over 19sec.
While Ogier's victory hopes remain realistic, the same could not be said of Finland's Jari-Matti Latvala, a three-time winner in Sweden.
He lost eight minutes after crashing 500m from the end of the eighth special.
There are eight more specials covering 134km on Saturday.
Source: AFP