WRC | Rallye Monte-Carlo, PS4: Neuville spins. Ogier stands out

The long-awaited first scratch of Sébastien Ogier, king of the Rallye Monte-Carlo, arrives in the 92nd edition of the event held in the French Alps. The 8-time world champion took a sensational special victory on SS4, the Champcella / Saint-Clément 1 of 17.87 kilometres, relaunching his hopes of high ranking.

Ogier beat both Elfyn Evans and Ott Tanak by a few seconds, respectively second and third in the special, coming so close to second place in the general classification which is still in the hands of Thierry Neuville.

For the Belgian, the PS4 went from being very promising to being the scene of an error that made him lose everything he had gained on the PS3 and even more, especially in the last part, with the dirtiest asphalt. The spin that occurred after a left-handed curve which was not very fast after all, led him to lose the 2 second advantage he had accumulated in the first two sectors, then losing 10 seconds to Ogier, winner of the stage.

Now Neuville has a few seconds advantage over his French rival and to close the morning lap he will have to face SS5, where the last kilometers promise to be extremely difficult due to the presence of ice. It is very likely that the day could find a turning point in the final stretch of the next special.

Good performance for Elfyn Evans, who did well to exploit the cleaner asphalt compared to his rivals, as did Ott Tanak, who put aside the mistake made on SS3 and restarted with a good pace.

What stole the eye in this test, in addition to the time obtained by Ogier, was Adrien Fourmaux. The Frenchman from the M-Sport team, also thanks to the mistake made by Tanak in the previous test, had managed to climb to fourth place in the general classification, establishing himself as the best driver of the second battery of Rally1 drivers. In this test the Estonian regained his position.

For now the Frenchman is the author of a flawless and overall competitive race considering his disadvantageous starting position. He is making a better impression than more highly rated riders such as Takamoto Katsuta and Andreas Mikkelsen. So he's off to a good start, but he will have to demonstrate that he has grown by finding consistency.

As for WRC2, another great performance from Pepe Lopez, who returned to shine after a less flashy PS3. The Spaniard closed behind Nikolay Gryazin, the new leader of the class. There are just 8 tenths of a second between the Citroen Racing driver and the Spaniard at the wheel of the first Skoda Fabia RS Rally2. Third position for Yohan Rossel with the second Citroen C3 Rally2, 5″8 off the top.