Neuville headed to midday service with a 5.1s lead over Evans after an impressive morning headlined by a blistering time on stage nine.
Nine-time Monte Carlo winner Ogier dropped from second to third, but ended the loop 7.7s adrift.
Ott Tanak maintained fourth (+1m18.6s) despite suffering an engine issue on his Hyundai. M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux (+2m06.4s) produced a controlled drive to complete the loop in fifth ahead of team-mate Gregoire Munster, who climbed to sixth (+3m39.1s) in front of Hyundai’s Andreas Mikkelsen (+3m44.1s).
Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta moved to eighth, as his recovery from losing five minutes to an off on Friday continued.
There was drama before the stages begun as Tanak’s i20N failed to fire up in parc ferme, which required a tow back to service where his team was able to revive the car.
Tanak was able to complete stage nine (Esparron/Oze 18.79km) but again suffered an engine issue reminiscent of the problem he suffered on Thursday night.
“This morning we had some engine trouble where it’s sometimes driving and sometimes not,” said Tanak, who posted the sixth fastest time.
The stage itself presented a tough challenge for the crews, thanks to patches of frost and areas that were incredibly slippy, and it wasn’t long before it caught out one of the drivers.
Mikkelsen flew off the road at the first corner and was lucky his i20 N found an embankment on the exit to use as run-off.
“In the middle of the corner I flew off the road and we are super lucky to be here,” said Mikkelsen. “After that, for sure you have no confidence in anything anymore.”
It was his team-mate Neuville who stole the show however, as the Belgian produced a stunning effort to claim his fourth stage win of the event. The 2020 Monte winner clocked a time 9.6s faster than rally leader Evans, who found the conditions “difficult to judge”.
However, more importantly Neuville was 18.8s quicker than Ogier, who slid to third overall. The eight-time world champion put the time loss down to his information being “too safe”.
“I was well awake this morning,” said Neuville, who jumped to second overall, 6.5s behind Evans. “I expected the conditions to be worse to be honest, but I had a decent run.”
While Neuville set the pace, M-Sport’s new signing Munster turned heads by setting his first top three stage time of his top-flight WRC career to move into sixth overall.
Ogier responded on Stage 10 (Les Nonieres-Chichilianne, 20.04km) with a stage win of his own as the battle for overall victory took another twist.
The Frenchman navigated a tricky mountain stage that included a greasy decline to post a time 2.1s faster than Neuville.
But it was Neuville who shot to the top of the leaderboard as Evans was without hybrid boost, which cost him 9.5s, handing a 0.9s rally lead to the Hyundai driver. As a result, the trio were split by 5.1s.
Katsuta delivered his best drive of the rally so far to clock the third-quickest time ahead of Tanak, who was able to manage his engine issue through the test.
Neuville extended his lead over Evans to 5.1s after sharing the stage 11 (Pellafol/Agnieres-en-Devoluy - 21.37km) victory with team-mate Tanak. Neuville’s time came despite some issues with his pacenotes.
Ogier was 2.6s slower than the duo, while Evans dropped a further 4.2s but held onto second overall.
Citroen driver Nikolay Gryazin held a 1.3s lead over Pepe Lopez in WRC2, while Oliver Solberg retired from the rally with a double puncture.
