WRC | Rallye Monte-Carlo, SS5: Ogier climbs to second place

Sébastien Ogier and Vincent Landais gave an encore by also winning Special Stage 5 of the Rallye Monte-Carlo, the 18.31 kilometer La Breole/Selonnet and they did so in an overwhelming manner, with a super test both on the dry asphalt and on the few – but decisive – frozen parts.

The French crew of Toyota Gazoo Racing won the last stage of today's morning lap, inflicting very heavy gaps on everyone. Elfyn Evans, second, was 11″2 slower. Thierry Neuville did much worse, finishing at 16″9 due to indications on the asphalt that were very different from those he then found in practice.

This led Ogier to overtake the Belgian from Hyundai Motorsport and move up to second place in the overall standings, coming remarkably close to teammate Elfyn Evans who continues to lead the event. There is a 10″7 advantage between the two in favor of the Welshman, but it is clear that Ogier has now engaged a higher gear and anything can happen in the afternoon.

The Hyundai i20 N Rally1 of the starting crews, namely those of Neuville and Ott Tanak, closed the morning lap in third and fourth place respectively. Both made mistakes which led to them losing several seconds, with the Estonian even getting stuck in a ditch on SS3 after slipping on a patch of ice.

If Neuville and Tanak cannot be satisfied with the morning lap, Andreas Mikkelsen continues to struggle to adapt to the i20 N Rally1. The Norwegian is the last driver at the wheel of a Rally1 in the standings, excluding Takamoto Katsuta, who went off the road on SS3 which cost him a good 5 minutes.

Adrien Fourmaux, on the other hand, is literally the surprise of this start of the Rallye Monte-Carlo. The Frenchman from the M-Sport Ford team set the third fastest time on SS5 and, overall, is in a good position to fight with Ott Tanak for fourth place in the general classification. Up to now Forumaux has been very good at maintaining a good pace without making mistakes, despite a certainly not advantageous starting position.

Complex day for Gregoire Munster, making his debut as an official M-Sport driver. The Dutchman alternated good results with stages where he preferred not to take risks to avoid crashing and retiring.

If in the WRC Ogier is trying to take first position after a less than brilliant start to the race, in the WRC2 Pepe Lopez managed to regain the top right on SS5. The Spaniard, at the wheel of a Skoda Fabia RS Rally2, won the class test and overtook Nikolay Gryazin again. The two are now separated by 4 tenths of a second in favor of the Iberian, while the Russian – who races under the Bulgarian flag in this event – will try to overtake in the afternoon. Yohan Rossel is third in the second Citroen C3 Rally2, also just 5.2 seconds behind the top.

Sami Pajari continues to be the best driver at the wheel of the new Toyota GR Yaris Rally2, but more than 1 minute behind the three best in WRC2. It's clear that the Japanese car still needs time to be better understood and, probably, tweaked where it still shows flaws. Until now there has been no comparison with Skoda and Citroen, which are still clearly superior.

The Friday morning ride ends here. The stage will resume this afternoon with SS6, the 16.68 kilometer Saint-Léger-les-Mélèzes / La Bâtie-Neuve 2. The first car, the Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 number 33 of Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin, will enter testing at 2.56pm Italian time.

WRC 2024 – Rallye Monte Carlo – Ranking after SS5