Ott Tanak stormed into a convincing lead in the Rally of Chile as Kalle Rovanpera looked increasingly likely to have to wait to be crowned as a back-to-back world champion.

Behind the wheel of an M-Sport/Ford, 2019 world champion Tanak won four of the day's six stages to build a 58.3-second lead over Finland's Teemu Suninen in a Hyundai.

Another Hyundai driver Thierry Neuville of Belgium was third, 1 min 12.2 sec off the top.

Toyota's Rovanpera was fifth, 2 min 24 sec off the lead with closest world championship rival Elfyn Evans in fourth and holding an advantage of more than a minute over his teammate.

"It was an extremely satisfying day," said Tanak, who won the race in Chile when it was last contested.

"But it's not over, we have to continue like this tomorrow."

Rovanpera, who turns 23 on Sunday, arrived in Chile with a 33-point lead in the championship over his Welsh rival with 90 points still up for grabs over the three remaining races.

Rovanpera can still be crowned champion on Sunday but he needs to win the race and hope Evans fails to score more than three points.

On Sunday, the race concludes with four stages, the last of which is a power stage allowing the top five drivers to score additional points in the championship.

The final two rounds of the world championship are the Central European Rally, a new addition to the calendar, in Austria, Czech Republic and Germany, in late October with Japan hosting the 13th and final leg in November.