WRC | Rallye Monte-Carlo, SS11: 1-2 Hyundai. Neuville extends

An almost perfect Saturday morning crowns Thierry Neuville as the new leader of the Rallye Monte-Carlo. The Belgian driver, after taking the lead of the race at the end of SS10, signed another scratch together with teammate Ott Tanak and thus pulled ahead – albeit slightly – over his direct rivals.

The Belgian and the Estonian, who returned as teammates this year in Hyundai Motorsport, signed the same time (12'40″0), winning the SS11, the Pellafol / Agnières-en-Dévoluy 1 of 21.37 kilometres, thus giving the Alzenau team their fifth stage success in this edition of the Monegasque rally and the certainty of finishing the morning lap on Saturday in front of everyone.

If for Tanak the satisfaction of the scratch is purely an end in itself, for the Belgian it means having increased his margin over Elfyn Evans and Sébastien Ogier, his rivals for the success of the first 2024 WRC event.

Behind the two official Hyundai i20 N Rally1s we find three Toyota GR Yaris Rally1s on SS11. The best of these is entrusted to Takamoto Katsuta. The Japanese can take advantage of the less dirty asphalt compared to his rivals and in the 3 special stages this morning he put together a good comeback which led him to overtake all the Rally2s and enter the Top 10.

The Japanese was just 1″2 slower than the Hyundais, but was ahead of the other 2 contenders for the success of the event. Sébastien Ogier set the fourth fastest time, 2″6 behind Neuville, while Elfyn Evans, again without the With the help of the hybrid, he didn't go beyond fifth, 4.2 seconds behind the reference time.

With Ott Tanak and Adrien Fourmaux confident of fourth and fifth place, the fight for sixth continues between Gregoire Munster and Andreas Mikkelsen. The Dutchman ended the morning ahead of his rival, showing a few more interesting flashes this morning compared to yesterday. Mikkelsen, however, continues to not gain confidence with the i20 N Rally1, showing how Hyundai perhaps made a mistake in choosing the third driver for this weekend by having an expert driver who already knows the car like Dani Sordo at its disposal.

Nikolay Gryazin seems to have managed to shake off the pressure of Pepe Lopez, but he certainly can't sleep peacefully. The Russian, who is racing under the Bulgarian flag, is leading with the first Citroen C3 Rally2 and his margin is 5″9 over Lopez, second with the Skoda Fabia RS Rally2. Third place for Yohan Rossel with the second C3 Rally2, 8″7 behind the Spaniard.

The morning lap of the Rallye Monte-Carlo ends here. The event will resume this afternoon at 2.05pm Italian time with SS12, the second passage on the 18.79 kilometer Esparron / Oze.

WRC 2024 – Rallye Monte-Carlo – Ranking after SS11