The 90th edition of the Monte Carlo Rally saw the success of the almost 48 year old Sebastien Loeb, victorious with his Ford M-Sport at the end of a day characterized by numerous twists. The biggest, without a doubt, concerned Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier, one step away from winning the first race on the calendar – as well as the first of the hybrid era of the WRC – up to a few kilometers from the finish. The eight-time world champion, leading the general classification up to the 15th of the 17 scheduled tests, in fact had a puncture during the pre-power stage, suddenly losing all the 20 seconds of advantage that divided Loeb. Moreover, thanks to this unexpected event, the Alsatian was also able to overtake him in the standings, so much so as to generate a gap of 9 and a half seconds.
As if that weren’t enough, Ogier then started the power stage in the worst possible way, completing a jump start when the red light goes out. For this reason, the Race Direction has inflicted a penalty of 10 seconds to the Toyota standard bearer. An error made even more bitter by the actual result of the stopwatch, in which Loeb had closed with exactly nine seconds behind his compatriot. In this way, without the penalty, the two would have fought for the Rally del Principato on the edge of tenths. Once he crossed the finish line, Ogier commented on what happened at the start: “The engine made a strange noise – has explained – it bothered me a little and maybe I released a little earlier. I can still go out with my head held high, I did a good job this weekend. Unfortunately, however, it went like this. I would like to congratulate the team, we had a great weekend, which coincided with the first time with the hybrid “.
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