Craig Breen and Scott Martin achieved a top-five berth while team-mates Kris Meeke and Paul Nagle brought their DS3 WRC home safely to finish with three stage wins in total.

Breen and Martin maintained their consistent performance from the start and eventually finished fifth overall, 2:18.6mins behind winner Sebastian Ogier.

“That’s not so bad. I’m really happy with how the weekend’s gone,” said Breen. “We showed some strong speed when we needed it and that feels good.”

Having ended the first leg in eleventh overall after suffering a puncture Meeke began day two firing on all cylinders. The Northern Irishman bagged his first stage win of the 2016 Tour de Corse in stage five, a whopping 17 seconds ahead of the second-placed driver.

This breathtaking performance took him up into eighth position, but his fight-back would prove to be short-lived.

A few hundred metres after the start of SS6, an ill-judged pace note led to Meeke running wide on a corner. He hit a tree, breaking the front right half-axle, and forcing the Abu Dhabi Total WRT driver to retire on day two.

Having joined the final day under rally 2 regulations, Meeke said after the power stage: “Difficult to be really precise with the lines. Important thing for this weekend was that I came here and found some speed for next year. We’ve done that.”

Despite the setbacks, Meeke won three of the 10 stages, SS5, 9 and the final power stage.