Tyre preservation proved critical for Banbury's Subaru World Rally Team as they moved into the points on the second day of the Rallye de France Tour de Corse.

As the Mediterranean sun burned the broken and abrasive tarmac, the team's three drivers moved up the field.

The punishing combination was an unforgiving test for Pirelli’s P-Zero championship control tyres used by the WRC field, even in their hard compound guise, and drivers had to adopt a calculated approach to stop them overheating.

As tyre temperatures soared and the ambient nudged 28C, so the grip available from the rubber diminished and, coupled with a layer of dirt and gravel on the roads, the stages became increasingly slippery.

This challenge was compounded for the three SWRT entries by the continuation of Friday's battles, demanding a fine balance between racing hard and easing off slightly to save their tyres.

“The conditions today have been really tough, and there have been a lot of punctures which have reshuffled the order” said team principal David Richards.

“Unfortunately, although he remains in a strong sixth position, Chris’ puncture dropped him from the battle with Petter and Latvala.

"Petter is still doing a solid job in fifth, and it is great to see Brice moving into the top eight on his home rally.”

The three-way scrap between Petter Solberg, Chris Atkinson and Jari-Matti Latvala became a head-to-head when Atkinson and Stéphane Prévot suffered a front left puncture early on in stage nine.

Opting not to stop and change the wheel, the duo’s decision to nurse their car home was vindicated when they saved 30 seconds, losing 1minute 25s rather than the two minutes it would have taken to replace the wheel.

After two days of battling, Solberg and co-driver Phil Mills finished an intensely punishing second day of competition in fifth position overall, 22.4seconds shy of Ford’s Latvala with just over 116 kilometres left to run.

Lying in sixth position is the duo of Atkinson and Prévot, 1minute 50seconds adrift after their puncture.

Brice Tirabassi is eighth in the third Oxfordshire-prepared Subaru at the start of today's final day.

The rally is led by Citroen's Sebastien Loeb.