Being the longest run of Barum Rally Zlin, the Trojek stage offers a wide variety of challenges to its contenders, including tight forest sections, long and winding routes, as well as village roads to negotiate.

On his maiden IRC participation and showing great form, it was in such conditions that Bryan Bouffier signed his first stage win of the event so far. His Peugeot 207 Super 2000 proved fastest across this difficult route, taking 15:30.9 to complete the distance in style.

Somewhat returning to their earlier levels of performance, the Peugeot Belgium-Luxemburg cars of Nicolas Vouilloz and Freddy Loix claimed second and third positions, respectively 3.6 and 5.4 seconds behind Bouffier.

Luca Rossetti raced into the fourth spot and was followed by Enrique Garcia Ojeda, thereby grouping an all-Peugeot top five within 10.2 seconds.

Beyond the 20-second mark, we find Janos Toth and Pavel Valousek, with the latter's BFGoodrich Drivers Team car completing a string of seven Peugeot 207 Super 2000s at the top of this stage. Grzegorg Grzyb's Grande Punto arrived in eighth position.

Roman Odlozilik and Renato Travaglia completed the top ten with over a half-minute's delay on stage winner Bryan Bouffier.

Unfortunately for Giandomenico Basso's strong push forward, the varied menu on this run might have proven too much for his Abarth Grande Punto. The car encountered gearbox problems, costing the Italian two minutes and dropping him all the way down to 46th on this stage.

The leaderboard shows that Nicolas Vouilloz has increased his margin on Freddy Loix to 4.7 seconds, while Luca Rossetti fell back to a 14.1-second gap on his title rival. Bryan Bouffier maintained his fourth overall position and moved closer to Rossetti, but the Italian holds a comfortable 25.5-second buffer on the Frenchman nonetheless.

Enrique Garcia Ojeda jumps forward from eighth to fifth place, while Giandomenico Basso's gearbox issues see him slip from sixth to 18th overall.

The cars now head towards the service park before taking on today's second loop over this morning's stages, beginning at 15:20 local time.