Ott Tänak had won the Mortágua stage in the morning and a third stage win of the day enabled the Estonian to increase his lead to 6.9 seconds.
Sébastien Ogier safely negotiated the stage and was 2.2 seconds quicker than Takamoto Katsuta. That was enough for the Frenchman to regain second place.
Kalle Rovanperä managed to get the better of Thierry Neuville by eight-tenths of a second and strengthened his grip on fourth to 9.1 seconds.
Mortágua 1 had been the first stage of the morning and the re-run was the eighth of the day with Elfyn Evans continuing his road-sweeping duties. The Welshman ran one-tenth of a second slower than he had in the morning but he retained sixth.
Sami Pajari, Grégoire Munster and Josh McErlean maintained seventh, eighth and ninth and WRC2 leader Oliver Solberg rounded off the top 10 and increased his category lead over Yohan Rossel to 12 seconds. McErlean trails Munster by just four-tenths of a second.
Martinš Sesks clouted the banking with the front-right of his Ford Puma 9.5km into the stage but survived to the finish with the loss of around 10 seconds.
Mexican WRC2 driver Alejandro Mauro (Škoda – 38) lost a lot of time in SS8.
Car 33. EVANS/MARTIN
“Full dry conditions now. The feeling in the car was quite okay. Maybe it was the driver!”
Car 1. NEUVILLE/WYDAEGHE
“I have had many bad experiences on this stage. I was a bit afraid about that one but we are nicely through. I was shaking all the time. There was roughness in the ruts.”
Car 8. TÄNAK/JÄRVEOJA
“Tricky, this is one of the roughest of the day and a lot of loose stones. We try at least.”
Car 17. OGIER/LANDAIS
“Still not the fastest but I had a better set-up this time. It was rougher and looser than I expected.”
Car 69. ROVANPERÄ/HALTTUNEN
“It was okay. It’s really dry now so I think it will be cleaning a lot.”
Car 18. KATSUTA/JOHNSTON
“It’s bad driving. I was not happy. My driving was quite bad. I was trying to avoid the rocks.”
Car 5. PAJARI/SALMINEN
“I am happy with that. We didn’t feel like pushing.”
Car 22. SESKS/FRANCIS
Both rear tyres appeared to be off the rims at the stage finish after he clouted a banking. “I just missed the braking a little bit. It’s a strong car.”
Car 55. MCERLEAN/TREACY
“It was okay. I still need to trust that last bit.”