If yesterday was undoubtedly Sébastien Loeb’s day, today it seems that Sébastien Ogier has claimed his space. The reigning WRC world champion won Special Stage 10 of the Rallye Monte-Carlo, the 17.04km Saint-Jeannet / Malijai 1.
The Toyota Racing driver signed the best time in 9’26 “4, beating his teammate Elfyn Evans by 1” 1. In one fell swoop Ogier managed to completely fill the gap from Loeb and now finds himself paired with M-Sport’s Alsatian at the top of the overall standings.
Moreover Ogier also distanced – albeit slightly – Evans, who in the previous test had managed to reduce his gap from second position. Toyota placed the second hat-trick of the day, thanks to the third place obtained by Kalle Rovanpera.
The Finn, after making important changes to the set-up of his GR Yaris Rally1, looks like another driver compared to yesterday and, even if he is among the first to enter testing, he still managed to get a noteworthy time trial that has led to climb to seventh position, overtaking Ott Tanak.
This start on Saturday demonstrates how the GR Yaris Rally1, having solved the initial problems of youth, is already an extremely performing car, capable of developing speed with all three starting crews.
Sébastien Loeb, on the other hand, seems to be starting to suffer from the performance of the Japanese cars. The Ford Puma looks like a very good car, but at this juncture nothing seems to be able to stop the Yaris. However, his fourth place remains the best result “of the others”, considering that Craig Breen, with the same car, did 4 “6 worse than him.
For Hyundai Motorsport, however, this test was a real nightmare. Oliver Solberg, first to enter the special, between the second and the third intermediate went off the road by tackling a right-hand corner too quickly. In fact, it seems that the Swede took a rather sharp right-hand corner too fast, and ended up ditching his i20 in the vegetation on the outside of the curve.
Ott Tanak, on the other hand, chose a slow pace to avoid puncturing another tire: if that had happened, he would have been forced to retire, in the same way he was forced to do so in 2021: without spare wheels or 4 wheels. with rubber still on the rim to be able to return to the Service Park.
The last big problem for Hyundai is what struck Thierry Neuville. The Belgian entered the qualifying session one minute late (10 seconds penalty added to the overall race time) for trying to resolve an unspecified fault on his i20 N Rally1. But then the problems didn’t just get worse – they increased. According to the Belgian, during the test the car began to pull to one side, a symptom of a mechanical failure. The native of Sankt Vith even stated “It’s over” at the end of the test. It’s over. We will see if he will be at the start of the next test or if, instead, he will be forced to retire.
Also noteworthy was the puncture in the right rear tire that forced Gus Greensmith to slow down from mid-stage, not to mention the engine shutdown at the start of the stage which forced him to slow down further. Also Takamoto Katsuta’s mistake, who found himself saving a practically done spin.
WRC – Rallye Monte-Carlo 2022 – Ranking after the PS10
Pos. | Pilot / navigator | Car | Time / posting | Penalty |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Loeb / Galmiche | Ford Puma Rally1 | 1h41’42 “0 | |
2 | Ogier / Veillas | Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 | +0 “0 | |
3 | Evans / Martin | Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 | +9 “3 | |
4 | Breen / Nagle | Ford Puma Rally1 | + 1’02 “6 | |
5 | Neuville / Wydaeghe | Hyundai i20 N Rally1 | + 1’13 “7 | +10 “ |
6 | Katsuta / Johnston | Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 | + 1’57 “6 | |
7 | Rovanpera / Halttunen | Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 | + 2’04 “9 | |
8 | Tanak / Jarveoja | Hyundai i20 N Rally1 | + 2’15 “5 | |
9 | Greensmith / Andersson | Ford Puma Rally1 | + 2’43 “7 | |
10 | Mikkelsen / Eriksen | Skoda Fabia Rally2 Evo | + 5’30 “5 |
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