The 2025 FIA World Rally Championship got underway with three night stages high up in the French Alps. Under the gaze of tens of thousands of spectators who lit up the night sky with fireworks and flares, Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe ended the trio of stages on top of the standings by two seconds after cautiously threading their Hyundai i20 N through the tricky mountain pass roads.

Conditions ranged from dry and wet tarmac to hidden patches of black ice which Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Sebastian Ogier and Vincent Landais conquered to lead after two stages. An expensive spin into a pole in the final stage saw the multiple champion lose 12 seconds and drop to third overall.

“On the first part [of SS3] I was painting the road, and in the last part I was cleaning the road!” Neuville smiled. “Super tricky to keep it on the road. I’m happy with the first day. Overall, our target was to finish today.”

“[It was] difficult of course. A lot of mud on the road and we hit a pole sideways. It’s always lucky to get away with that,” said Ogier at the stop control.

Sandwiched between the Hyundai and Ogier was Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin in their GR Yaris, two seconds off the lead.

Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja ended fourth, some 27 seconds adrift of the reigning World Champion with Hyundai’s third crew Adrien Fourmaux/Alex Coria finishing in fifth. The Frenchman shone on stage two, beating Tanak’s time by 3.1 seconds.

Kalle Rovanpera, returning for a full season campaign with Toyota was a little rusty and ended down in sixth position with M-Sport Ford’s new team leader Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka slotting into seventh in the standings. The Luxembourger hustled his Puma to the fourth fastest time in the final stage of the evening, narrowing the gap to Rovanpera to 4.9 seconds.

Fighting a bout of flu, Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston ended eighth, 4’30” behind the Ford.

Sami Pajari, making his Monte Rally1 debut and with Marko Salminen reading the notes finished a cautious ninth ahead of the top Rally2 team of Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov, now Skoda mounted.

Josh McErlean and Eoin Treacy, making their Rally1 debut in the second M-Sport Ford Puma, ended in 12^th position after taking a sensible approach to the start of their new career path.

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Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe drove a faultless rally – barring one quick spin on Friday – to secure the Belgian driver’s 20^th career WRC victory. As early leader Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin’s pace faded on Saturday, so Neuville kicked his Hyundai i20 N into top gear and snatched the lead.

Briefly headed on the leaderboard by part-timer Sebastian Ogier/Vincent Landais, the Toyota Gazoo Racing crew had no answer to their rivals’ sheer pace in the tricky conditions.

“I don’t have the words to be honest”, said a delighted Neuville at the Col finish. “It was just so great this weekend, I felt so comfortable in the car. The whole team was doing an amazing job and I think the whole package was working really well. We need to continue working, but we are very happy to win this rally.”

Neuville won eight of the 17 stages on his way to victory, while Ogier took six wins – including his 700^th stage win to put him fourth on the table of all-time stage winners.

Evans claimed the final step of the podium, comfortably clear of Hyundai WRT returnee Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja, who had a few minor technical issues over the course of the event.

Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria brought their M-Sport Ford Puma home in fifth after clean, steady run as they built confidence and knowledge of their car.

Andreas Mikkelsen/Torstein Eriksen brought the third Hyundai home in sixth ahead of Takamoto Katsuta in the third Toyota Yaris having lost five minutes on stage three buried in a snowbank after skidding on black ice. He was in good company as Tanak lost 40 seconds at the same spot.

Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka was the only major casualty, having skidded off the road and buried their Puma in a wooden fence on Saturday, stuck and out of the rally for the day.

Yohan Rossel/Arnaud Dunand took WRC2 honours in their Citroen C3 Rally2, setting a phenomenal time on the final stage up the Col de Turini, beating out their rally-long rivals Pepe Lopez/David Vázquez’s Skoda Fabia and Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov in another C3.

Neuville took seven Super Sunday points as well as the five for the Wolf Power Stage giving him a full house to start the season.

Katsuta was beaten by 0.1 seconds in the final stage by Ogier with Evans and Tänak picking up the remaining bonus points.

Read Motorsport Monday tomorrow for a full report. www.motorsportmonday.com

The post Neuville’s Monte Magic appeared first on Motorsport Week.

Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville leads proceedings after Saturday’s running in Rallye Monte-Carlo amid Sebastien Ogier claiming a landmark 700th stage win in the World Rally Championship.

The rally lead swapped between Elfyn Evans, Neuville and Ogier throughout Saturday, but with issues befalling the Welshman, it was up to Neuville and Ogier to duke it out on Saturday afternoon.

After Friday’s running was complete with the conclusion of SS8, Elfyn Evans was the rally leader in his Toyota Gazoo Racing GR Yaris Rally1 by a margin of 4.5 seconds over Ogier, with Neuville 16.1 seconds back.

Neuville set out his stall on Friday morning by hitting the SS9 with superior pace in his Hyundai i20N Rally1, eclipsing Evans’ time by 9.6 seconds and Ogie by 18.8 seconds, thus changing the overall order to Evans, Neuville (+6.5s), Ogier (13.7s).

The Belgian then assumed the Rally lead in the next stage, with Evans suffering “a little issue” which was a lack of hybrid, concerning 7.4s to Neuville as a result. Still, Ogier wasn’t hanging around and sliced 2.1s out of Neuville on SS10 and just 5.1s covered the trio after the penultimate stage of the morning route.

Neuville set the pace once again heading into the afternoon break, stretching his overall lead over Evans to 5.1s, with the Toyota driver admitting that “maybe the feeling wasn’t perfect” amid a dirty tarmac surface in SS11.

At this point, Ogier trailed Neuville by 7.7s after dropping another 2.1s in SS11 and the record Monte winner admitted “It would be better if we didn’t give away so much time this morning.”

Action resumed in the afternoon with another trio of stages and Ogier claimed the first stage win to close in to just 2.2s behind Neuville as Evans slipped further back, 16.5s off of the overall lead and claiming “that’s a big surprise. “I’m surprised it’s so bad.”

“I think I’m really struggling in the low grip sections,” the Welshman added after SS13, having dropped another 7.6s on that stage to trail the rally lead by 21.9s.

SS13 belonged to Ogier, who went 3.0s faster than Neuville to take the stage win (the 700th of his career) and rally lead by less than a second.

Ogier was in the ascendancy and looking for three consecutive stage wins in the afternoon to head into Sunday in style, but Neuville responded well, going 4.1s faster than Ogier to take the rally lead by 3.3s.

“We did a good stage, it was perfection,” Neuville said. “Everything went well and I really enjoyed the car – it was incredible. It’s important to take the points tonight but we also needed to keep the car on the road. I had a good feeling so went for it and it seems like it paid off.”

After declaring his rally long fight to top the classification, Ogier said “It looks like we need to try harder tomorrow” as he looks to extend his Monte winning record.

Evans had gone from rally leader at the start of Saturday to adrift by 34.9s at the end of the day’s running and said the afternoon had “not been what we hoped for.

“The feeling is not where it was for some reason, but that’s how it is. Tomorrow with the new format is sort of like the start of a new day, so that’s what we’ll treat it like.”

The new format, assuming runners finish the Rally on Sunday, will see Neuville awarded 18 points for leading at the end of Saturday, with a 15-13-10-8-6-4-3-2-1 sliding points scale for the runners behind.

Sunday will see points awarded based on the day’s running only (with the Rally winner still declared via overall time through the whole event), awarded in a scale of 7-6-5-4-3-2-1 with the final Power Stage bonus points still on offer as well.

Back to the rally, Hyundai’s Ott Tänak led the order behind the top three +1:37.6s off of the rally lead, followed by M-Sport Ford’s Adrien Fourmaux (+2:35.0s) and Hyundais Andreas Mikkelsen (+4:8.7s).

Elsewhere, Grégoire Munster’s day came to an early end when he beached his M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 6.3km into SS12 after going off the road – hopes dashed, but luckily he and co-driver Louis Louka were unharmed.

In WRC2, Nikolay Gryazin in his Citroen C3 Rally2 machine leads Pepe López in his Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 by 0.2s.

Rallye Monte-Carlo concludes Sunday with a further three stages.

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Elfyn Evans leads Rallye Monte-Carlo after Friday’s second leg, but the Welshman is under increasing pressure from his Toyota Gazoo Racing team-mate Sébastien Ogier.

Evans had been 21.6sec clear of his GR Yaris Rally1 colleague after Thursday’s night-time pair of stages, but Ogier is looming increasingly large in the Welshman’s rear-view mirrors after a stunning drive over Friday’s French Alps roads near Gap saw him whittle that deficit down to just 4.5sec.

Ogier won two of the morning’s three stages and climbed from third to second after Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville spun his i20 N in SS4. The Frenchman had moved to within 10.7sec of Evans by the day’s midpoint, with the bulk of the time being gained over the ice-patched special stage from La Bréole to Selonnet.

The pair were closely matched for much of the repeated afternoon loop, but it was again at La Bréole / Selonnet – held in darkness on its second run – where Ogier shone, outpacing his colleague by 4.1sec to set-up a thrilling showdown going into Saturday’s penultimate leg.

“It was a difficult start to the rally, but we expected that with our start position,” said Ogier, a nine-time winner of this event. “Now I am glad that we managed to be very close – tomorrow will be fun.”

Evans, who was never outside the top three times, admitted that conditions had been difficult to read.

“It never gets easier, this rally,” he explained. “[The last stage was] very difficult in the dark. I had a lot of information, but I couldn’t see a lot of it to be honest – I just had to trust it. It’s very difficult to read the conditions on the road. I’m happy to get through today without any issues.”

Neuville remained very much in the fight at the sharp-end and trailed Ogier by 11.6sec in third. He won three of the day’s six special stages and enjoyed a trouble-free run aside from his early-morning spin.

Ott Tänak was lucky to end the day 57.5sec further back in fourth after ice on a right-hander sent his Hyundai sliding into a ditch during SS3. It took spectators just 40sec to get the Estonian back on the road. Grégoire Munster and Takamoto Katsuta also went off at the same location, with the latter dropping more than five minutes.

Adrien Fourmaux repaid M-Sport Ford’s faith in him by delivering an impressive third-best time in SS5. The 28-year-old is returning to the WRC’s top level having contested WRC2 in 2023, and he completed the top five aboard his Puma.

Andreas Mikkelsen, also returning to the top-flight for the first time since 2019, ended the day over one minute back from Fourmaux in sixth overall. Driving a Hyundai, the Norwegian found it difficult to trust the information in his pace notes with surface conditions changing constantly. It’s the first time he has driven a modern-era hybrid car and spent much of the day acclimatising to the latest Rally 1 car.

Seventh-placed Munster reached the overnight halt 28.2sec further back in his Puma, while WRC2 contenders Nikolay Gryazin, Pepe López had an epic fight. Lopez lead by 14.2 seconds after Thursday’s loop.

Friday’s first stage saw Gryazin take the lead by 1.8 seconds, which Lopez cut to 0.8 seconds after stage four, and after stage five, the Spaniard was back in the lead by four tenths of a second.

Gryazin re-took the lead after stage six, Lopez lead after stage seven and Gryazin went to bed on Friday evening with the lead once more, 1.3 seconds ahead.

Saturday’s competitive distance is 120.40km.

Leading positions after Friday:
1. E Evans / S Martin GBR Toyota GR Yaris 1h 25m 28.9s
2. S Ogier / V Landais FRA Toyota GR Yaris +4.5s
3. T Neuville / Martijn Wydaeghe BEL Hyundai i20 N +16.1s
4. O Tänak / M Järveoja EST Hyundai i20 N +1m 13.6s
5. A Fourmaux / A Coria FRA Ford Puma +1m 38.0s
6. A Mikkelsen / T Eriksen NOR Hyundai i20 N +2m 58.9s

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Elfyn Evans dominated Thursday evening’s opening two stages to claim the early lead of Rallye Monte-Carlo by 15.1 seconds.

Evans, driving a Toyota GR Yaris, won the 21.km stage by 5.2sec. He added a further 6.8sec to his lead by topping the timesheets for the following 25.19km stage.

Predominantly dry conditions offered relatively high levels of grip. It followed a dazzling start ceremony in Monaco’s Casino Square, where His Serene Highness The Prince of Monaco flagged away the leading cars.

“In the first one, we had quite an okay feeling,” Evans said. “We seemed to have a clean run through, but the second one was a bit more complicated, and there was quite a lot more going on with the conditions and the shiny Tarmac.

“The objective was just to get through cleanly more than anything. Of course, I am happy, but it’s just the beginning.”

Neuville was worried about his tyres overheating in the opener but overtook Ott Tänak in the next test to claim second as his Estonian team-mate struggled with a mapping issue that caused his Hyundai i20 N’s throttle to stick. The Belgian driver later revealed that he too had encountered a similar problem, as had Andreas Mikkelsen in the Korean manufacturer’s third car.

“It looks like my team-mates are facing similar issues,” Neuville confirmed. “We are going to work on it – the guys know what to do and what the problem is.”

Tänak described the issue by saying: “When we are lifting, it’s full gas.”

Sébastien Ogier made it two Toyotas in the top three, although he trailed Evans by a sizeable 21.6sec. Running fourth compared with Evans’ first in the starting order meant the nine-time Rallye Monte-Carlo winner was disadvantaged by dirtier road conditions caused by those ahead cutting corners.

A frustrated Tänak ended the evening 1.2sec further back, while M-Sport Ford hotshot Adrien Fourmaux delivered an impressive drive despite his lack of regular Rally1 experience. Sitting fifth and 39.0sec adrift of the top spot, Fourmaux headed both Takamoto Katsuta and Grégoire Munster, while Mikkelsen languished in eighth as a result of his problems.

One of the star performances came from Spain’s Pepe López, who placed ninth overall and led the WRC2 category despite driving an unfamiliar Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 with new co-driver David Vázquez alongside him. He won both stages to head Nikolay Gryazin by 14.2sec.

The action resumes with six stages near the host town of Gap. Two loops of three tests add up to over 105km of competition.

Leading positions after Thursday:
1. E Evans / S Martin GBR Toyota GR Yaris 26m 12.9s
2. T Neuville / Martijn Wydaeghe BEL Hyundai i20 N +15.1s
3. S Ogier / V Landais FRA Toyota GR Yaris +21.6s
4. O Tänak / M Järveoja EST Hyundai i20 N +22.8s
5. A Fourmaux / A Coria FRA Ford Puma +39.0s
6. T Katsuta / A Johnston JPN Hyundai i20 N +46.3s

The post Evans draws first blood appeared first on Motorsport Week.

The opening round of the 2024 FIA World Rally Championship at Rallye Monte-Carlo boasts a maximum 70-car entry.

The full entry list, released on Monday, January 8 is headlined by eight Rally 1 machines fielded by Toyota Gazoo Racing, Hyundai Motorsport and M-Sport Ford.

Leading the charge for reigning Manufacturers’ Champions Toyota is last year’s runner-up in the Drivers’ standings Elfyn Evans, with the GR Yaris Rally1’s other full-time occupant Takamoto Katsuta also set to tackle the stages of Monte-Carlo.

Evans won rallies in Croatia, Finland and Japan during the 2023 season, whilst Katsuta achieved a fine podium in the fast forest stages of Finland also.

This year’s event will be based in the town of Gap, the birthplace of record nine-time Monte-Carlo winner Sébastien Ogier, who will contest the rally as one of his select rounds behind the wheel of the GR Yaris Rally1 in 2024.

Absent from the Toyota lineup is reigning champion Kalle Rovanperä who has stepped back to contest select rounds in 2024 – his campaign will commence at a later event.

Hyundai Motorsports is also fielding three Rally1 machines in this year’s WRC curtain-raiser with Belgian Thierry Neuville leading the lineup of i20N Rally1 entrants.

Neuville enters 2024 after adding a further two WRC wins to his tally last year with victory in Italy and the Central European Rally.

2019 World Champion Ott Tänak also features, back with the team after a year with M-Sport which saw him win rallies in Sweden and Chile.

Tänak and Neuville will be joined by part-time entrant Andreas Mikkelsen with the reigning WRC2 Champion returning to top-level WRC competition for the first time since 2019.

Mikkelsen will share the third i20N Rally1 with Dani Sordo and Esapekka Lappi throughout 2024.

Unlike its WRC rivals, M-Sport Ford will enter just two Puma Rally1 machines in this year’s Rallye Monte-Carlo, piloted by Adrien Fourmaux and Gregoire Munster respectively.

Fourmaux and Munster competed in both Rally1 and WRC2 Ford machinery in 2023, with both making the step up to full-time WRC competition in 2024.

Fourmaux will look to build on an impressive campaign which saw him claim last year’s British Rally Championship title and a victory in the WRC2 category in the Central European Rally.

Munster’s 2023 achievements included a WRC2 Challenger win in Greece and victory behind the wheel of a Fiesta Rally3 in the Junior WRC in Estonia.

With Mikkelsen absent from WRC2, the likes of Yohan Rossel and Nikolay Gryazin will be looking to battle it out for supremacy aboard their works Citroën C3 Rally2 machines.

Fresh off the back of its recent homologation, several competitors have entered with the new Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 machine.

Taking part behind the wheel of the new Yaris are the likes of Sami Pajari (competing with Printsport Racing), Stéphane Lefebvre, Jan Solans and Bryan Bouffier.

As ever, there will be a strong showing of Skodas in WRC2, with Oliver Solberg competing in a factory-supported Fabia RS.

Rallye Monte-Carlo gets underway on January 25, concluding on January 28 – the event is the first round of 13 in the 2024 WRC season.

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Sebastien Ogier won the 2023 edition of the Rallye Monte-Carlo, beating his Toyota team-mate, Kalle Rovanperä, by 18.5s. Thierry Neuville brought home his Hyundai in third place 44.6s back.

The final day had been set up with a possible fightback from Rovanperä because the Finn started the day only 16s behind Ogier, but the Frenchman started the day strongly by winning the first stage to extend the lead to 18.7s.

Rovanperä didn’t feel as confident during the stage and commented: “I am not fully happy. I did this stage last year and I was not on the pace, so for sure it was not easy now to step up.”

Despite a lack of confidence, however, there wasn’t an immediate threat from behind due to Neuville spinning on stage and then experiencing a hybrid issue. This dropped the lead Hyundai back to a 37.1s deficit to Ogier.

The following stage saw Rovanperä claw back 1.5s and grab the stage win but it wasn’t significant enough to make a proper dent into the lead with only two stages remaining. At this point, Neuville was looking back to a possible challenge from Elfyn Evans but with the Welshman already having to manage his tyres, Neuville was able to produce a clean stage to extend the gap.

At SS17, Ogier made another statement by beating his nearest rival by 6.3s. Takamoto Katsuta did split them in the stage standings, but all Ogier had to do was navigate the Wolf Power Stage with no issues.

And that is exactly what the veteran accomplished. Rovanperä beat Ott Tänak to top the stage timings followed by Evans, but it was only a 4.7s gap back to Ogier. This meant that Ogier grabbed a record ninth Rallye Monte-Carlo victory.

“It’s huge. I love this rally, it’s the one which gave me the dream right at the beginning and I am so happy for Vincent: it’s nice for me, but for him, it’s a dream to take his first win.”

Rovanperä was happy with second overall and topping the power stage timings. “It was a good one. I think we can be quite happy with second place. There was much more cleaning than I expected on Thursday and Friday, and it seems when we were in the same conditions as everyone, we had the same pace as everyone else.”

With Ogier only completing a part-time program, this effectively means that Rovanperä leads the full-time contingent of drivers in the overall standings.

Neuville brought home third place but bemoaned a lack of speed in the car at this stage. “I gave it everything in there, but we had so much tyre wear compared to the others all weekend and we are missing speed. Even if we are taking some risks at some points, we can’t match the others.”

Elfyn Evans brought his car home in fourth, but it was a question of what could have been for the Welshman. The car was on pace and running second early on, but the Friday puncture cost the Toyota so much time that a podium was too far of a stretch.

Tänak finished fifth in what was a testing first rally for him in the Ford Puma Rally1. Various issues from the start meant that Tänak didn’t have too much of a chance to get comfortable in the event.

Tänak’s team-mate, Pierre-Louis Loubet, was the only Rally1 driver not to finish round 1 of the season. On Sunday a broken handbrake and then a technical problem before the penultimate test of the rally forced him to retire again, making it a rally to forget for the new full-time M-Sport driver.

Takamoto Katsuta brought his car home in sixth despite coming close to beating Tänak. The Japanese driver suffered an issue in the final test which meant that he nearly fell back into the clutches of Dani Sordo. Esapekka Lappi was the last Rally1 finisher in a debut to forget in Hyundai colours.

Final classification:

1. Ogier – 3hr 12min 2s
2. Rovanpera – +18.5s
3. Neuville – +44.6s
4. Evans – +1min 12.4s
5. Tänak – +2min 34.9s
6. Katsuta – +3min32.6s

The post Sebastien Ogier claims record ninth Monte-Carlo win appeared first on Motorsport Week.

Sebastien Ogier finished Saturday with a 16s lead over his team-mate Kalle Rovanperä as the Rallye Monte Carlo heads into its final day. Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville currently sits in third 32s back from Ogier.

Ogier started the day with a sizeable lead that allowed the Frenchman to take a sensible approach to the stages. With this cautious approach, Ogier’s lead was cut by 6s during the morning loop as he minimised the risks that could cause a puncture.

“Since this morning, the target is to try to stay safe.” Ogier said “There are a lot of cuts with a high risk of punctures, so I took it easy.

The crews behind started to work on closing the gap to the lead Toyota with Rovanperä claiming a stage win as he also gapped the Hyundai of Neuville. Toyota had a stranglehold on the top of the timesheets as up until the mid-point, no other manufacturer had taken a stage win, but Neuville went and won SS12 and SS13 to keep the pressure on.

When it came to the final stage of the day though, Rovanperä produced a stunning drive that cleared everyone else by 6s. This left Ogier with a 16s lead to try to hold onto going into the final day.

Elfyn Evans was continuing his recovery from an early puncture the day before and moved into fourth as Ford driver Ott Tänak suffered with an intermittent power-steering problem throughout the day. Tänak held onto fifth but found himself 40s down on Evans and 1min 37.s down on Ogier.

Takamoto Katsuta finished the day in sixth, however due to the gaps in front and behind, the Japanese driver is on his own with no real battle going on. Dani Sordo once again had a day to forget but whereas on Friday he was confused, Saturday saw just an outright unhappy Spaniard due to fighting Hybrid issues.

Esapekka Lappi follows Sordo by only 2.6s after suffering a puncture, but the incident goes to Pierre-Louis Loubet. After what has been a rally to forget, after his heroics the previous day, Loubet ended up hitting a bank and damaged his Puma. This meant that he had to retire from the day as no substantial repair could be completed.

Standings after Day 3

1. Ogier – 2hr 27min 11.5s
2. Rovanperä – +16s
3. Neuville – +32s
4. Evans – +56s
5. Tänak – +1min 37.3
6. Katsuta – +2min 15.7s

The post Ogier holds lead as Rovanperä begins charge appeared first on Motorsport Week.

Sebastien Ogier has finished day two of Rallye Monte-Carlo with a 36s advantage over 2022 champion, Kalle Rovanpera. Rovanperä is closely followed by Thierry Neuville as the crews’ head into Saturday.

Ogier is running a part-time campaign but is also going for his ninth victory at the rally and is going about it in the best way possible. Carrying his impeccable form form Thursday night, the Toyota driver’s pace was relentless as he increased his lead over his rivals.

“I am very satisfied,” said Ogier “Obviously the risk of punctures was higher, so I took things a bit more easy, I’m just happy to bring home the car tonight.”

Rovanperä managed to leapfrog Neuville into second place during the afternoon loop, but this was also at the expense of Elfyn Evans. Evans was running second in the morning but suffered a puncture on the right rear of his car leaving his challenge for the win in tatters.

Evans did pick up a stage win during his recovery drive, but the time loss meant that he now sits fifth place, 1min 02.3s behind his French teammate. He also now trails Ott Tänak who was still searching for the sweet spot in his new for 2023 ride.

Tänak provided a boost to the M-Sport team as his team-mate, Pierre-Louis Loubet, had to complete over half of the day with no power steering. Due to their not being a mid-day service, Loubet had to soldier on but lost a massive chunk of time and out of the running for a good finish.

Rounding out the top six was Dani Sordo, who felt that the risks he was taking in his Hyundai didn’t match up with the times he was getting. Takamoto Katsuta enjoyed a more trouble-free run compared to Thursday night and finished the day ahead of Esapekka Lappi who was struggling with his car like Sordo.

Standings after Day 2

1. Ogier – 1hr 26min 39.4s
2. Rovanperä – +36.0s
3. Neuville – +37.9s
4. Tänak – +54.2s
5. Evans – +1min 2.3s
6. Sordo – +1min 30.2s

The post Ogier asserts dominance after masterclass in Monte-Carlo appeared first on Motorsport Week.

The opening round of the 2023 World Rally Championship saw Sebastien Ogier topping the time-sheets after completing the opening two stages of the Rallye Monte-Carlo. Ogier leads his team-mate Elfyn Evans by 6s with Ford’s new signing, Ott Tänak, 15.4s down the road.

Round one of season got underway with two stages on Thursday night with SS1 giving the drivers their first taste of the Col de Turini.

Ogier continued his form from the earlier shakedown by setting the initial pace and heading Evans by 1.3s. Thierry Neuville was Hyundai’s best driver in the first test after finishing 6s behind Evans to place third.

SS1 didn’t give drivers too many dramas unless your name is Tänak, the Estonian experienced some electrical issues on his Ford Puma Rally1 and couldn’t select fifth gear. He had to battle this problem as the crews headed to SS2.

The second stage, whilst looking clear, was characterised by black ice that caught out a few drivers. Thierry Neuville was one of those, he slid on a patch on a tight left-hander and went wide. Neuville subsequently stalled his car which cost him precious seconds.

Takamoto Katsuta’s Toyota developed an issue with his handbrake as a message on his dash showed an error that meant that he had no use of it particularly through the hairpins.

2022 Drivers’ Champion, Kalle Rovanperä took it easy in the opening tests to sit fifth behind Neuville. Dani Sordo made the top six but was 32.1s behind at the end of the day.

Results after Day 1

1. Ogier – 26min 33.7s
2. Evans – +6.0s
3. Tänak – +15.4s
4. Neuville – +15.5s
5. Rovanperä – +17.1s
6. Sordo – +32.1s

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