Brandon Stone was happy to pick his playing partner’s brains in the first two rounds and reaped the benefits on Saturday with a 63 to surge into a share of third in the DP World Tour’s FedEx Open de France.

Edoardo Molinari’s influence on Europe’s Ryder Cup success under captain Luke Donald is well known, with the Italian’s statistical insights helping inform the team’s strategy.

“I had the pleasure of playing with Dodo Molinari the last couple days, and even yesterday, just awesome,” Stone said after carding eight birdies and no bogeys. “I said to him, ‘You’re the stats guy: Why do I like this golf course so much?’ And he gave me a few points. I was like, ‘Okay, that makes sense.’ So then obviously I took that with me through today.”

Stone made eight birdies without dropping a shot, and, for a third successive round, it was a putting display which vindicated his putting an old faithful flat stick back in his bag.

At 13-under-par, he was in a six-way share of third, six strokes behind Matt Fitzpatrick of England, who moved to 19-under-par.  Fitzpatrick built a commanding five-shot lead over nearest challenger Tom Vaillant after a round of 65, with seven birdies to offset his first bogey of the week, and was in no mood to let up.

“I feel like I’m in a position that if I go and shoot a good round tomorrow, then obviously it makes it almost impossible to catch,” he said in his post-round interview. When it was put to him in his press conference that the Sunday crowd would again be supporting his French playing partner Vaillant, Fitzpatrick added: “Yeah, that’s okay. They’ve been great fans so far so I appreciate the support. But, yeah, it will be a great day, and looking forward to it.”

Thriston Lawrence battled to a one-under-par 70 to be in a share of 14th on 10-under-par, and, despite a three-over seven on the last hole, Ockie Strydom was on nine-under in a share of 17th with his three-under 68.