Frenchman Sebastien Ogier has regained the Rally Australia lead in a thrilling afternoon of flat-out gravel racing in Coffs Harbour on Saturday.

Rain showers were forecast to arrive at the World Rally Championship event mid-way through the afternoon’s pair of stages, meaning that many drivers had to gamble on the correct tyre choice.

Ogier opted to take three hard-compound tyres and one soft-compound tyre for his VW Polo R WRC, as opposed to teammate Jari-Matti Latvala who opted for a full set of softs.

The rain never materialised, the soft tyres wore out more quickly and Ogier put 14 seconds into his Finnish teammate over 57km of flat-out rallying, ahead of Saturday night’s Super Special Stage at Coffs Harbour Showground.

“Having one soft tyre was not ideal, but I made a better choice than Jari-Matti,” Ogier said.

“As the driver, I have the final say, and this time it worked out.”

Latvala was left ruing his decision, but pointed out there is still 100km of competitive racing left on Sunday “and as we know, anything can still happen,” Latvala said.

Early leader Kris Meeke is in third position going into the Super Special Stage, but believes it won’t hold.

“We lost seven seconds to the VWs last night over three kilometres,” he said.

“They are super quick around there.”

The third VW of Andreas Mikkelsen sits just one second behind the Irishman.

New Zealander Hayden Paddon is holding down an impressive seventh place in just his fifth drive in a WRC car, while Queensland’s Chris Atkinson continues to struggle and puts it down to a lack of match practice.

“It’s not ideal for sure. It’s been a tough weekend, and it doesn’t help running first on the road,” he said.

“It’s not the car. I just haven’t been able to get in the rhythm. The feeling’s just not there this weekend.”