First shot by Neuville
The 2024 WRC world championship opened with the victory of Thierry Neuville in the Monte Carlo Rally, winner of the first round on the calendar after a long fight with Sèbastien Ogier. The Frenchman, who thus failed to secure his tenth success in the Principality, had to surrender to the excellent form of his rival Hyundaiwho thus returns to rejoice on the Col de Turini for the first time since the first victory obtained in 2020.
Three different leaders in three days
The Monte Carlo Rally actually started on a high note Elfyn Evans, capable of winning the two tests scheduled on the first day and then maintaining the leadership on Friday too, despite not finishing ahead of everyone in any of the stages staged in the French Alps. A day in which Ogier let off steam with tears at the end of the SS5 for the death of a person dear to him, even if the real evolution of the ranking occurred only on Saturday, with the clear change of gear by Neuville . The Belgian, after immediately taking the lead with two victories in the special tests, managed to increase his gap on Ogier to 3 seconds, with the transalpine still author of three best times and leader of the standings only at the end of SS13. On the contrary, the Welshman from Toyota dropped to third place, but with a delay of 34 seconds.
Perfect Sunday
Neuville's determination did not fade even in the early stages of Sunday, with the Hyundai driver able to further extend his lead on Neuville to 8 seconds. The Hyundai driver in fact won the first two tests of the morning, with the provisional classification seeing Ogier in 2nd place with a delay of 13 seconds, all with Evans almost completely excluded from the fight for the victory due to his 40 seconds behind the leader. In the power stage from La Bollene to Col de Turini Neuville repeated it for the third time, thus obtaining the maximum points available in the promo round with the new scoring system, i.e. 30.
WRC / Monte Carlo Rally 2024 – Final standings (top-10)
| POS. | PILOT | CAR | TIME/GAP |
| 1 | Thierry Neuville | Hyundai | 3:09:30.9 |
| 2 | Sebastien Ogier | Toyota | +16.1 |
| 3 | Elfyn Evans | Toyota | +45.2 |
| 4 | Oct Tänak | Hyundai | +1:59.8 |
| 5 | Adrien Fourmaux | Ford | +3:36.9 |
| 6 | Andreas Mikkelsen | Hyundai | +5:34.6 |
| 7 | Takamoto Katsuta | Toyota | +8:28.5 |
| 8 | Yohan Rossel | Citroën (WRC2) | +10:29.8 |
| 9 | Pepe Lopez | Skoda (WRC2) | +10:33.8 |
| 10 | Nikolay Gryazin | Citroën (WRC2) | +10:45.2 |
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