Saturday's stages at the Rallye Monte-Carlo were often the scene of important changes. The 92nd edition of the longest rally in history is not the exception that proves the rule. On the contrary.
The general classification of the Monegasque event has a new master: Thierry Neuville. The Belgian from Hyundai Motorsport, after winning the SS9 which opened the day, took a good second time in the 20.04 kilometer SS10 Les Nonières / Chichilianne 1 which, together with the disappointing performance of Elfyn Evans, led him to be the new leader.
Of course, his margin is just 9 tenths of a second over the Welshman, but the Belgian from Hyundai's start in the morning was excellent. If SS9 was the real basis of the comeback, SS10 took him where he thought he would get, perhaps, in tomorrow's first tests. Certainly not today.
But be careful, the race and the fight for success is more open than ever. Sébastien Ogier, after losing second place in the previous test, won SS10 with authority and a margin of 2″1 over Neuville. Considering Evans' poor performance, the 8-time world champion now finds himself 5″1 behind the Belgian and 4.2 seconds behind his teammate, who slipped into second place.
The first 3 in 5 seconds, the WRC could not have asked for anything better on Saturday of the 2024 prologue. Of course, perhaps it is the absence of Ott Tanak from the fight for the podium that is jarring, but historically the Estonian has never shone in convincing manner in Monte-Carlo. Furthermore, both yesterday and this morning, he still had several reliability problems on his i20 N Rally1, which appears to have improved in performance, but still lacks in terms of solidity.
On SS10, thanks to a starting position that proved to be perfect, Takamoto Katsuta was able to express himself better, setting the third time, 2″3 behind Ogier. The Japanese is trying to recover time and a place in the Top 10 after losing it due to the mistake made yesterday on a patch of ice at kilometer 7.7 of the PS3.
Gregoire Munster is still doing well, fifth fastest in qualifying, 6.2 seconds behind the reference time. The Dutchman continues to be faster than Andreas Mikkelsen, a rival with whom he is competing for sixth place in the general classification.
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