At the beginning of the afternoon, many wondered who, between Sébastien Ogier and Thierry Neuville, had made the best tire choice. Not so much in the choice of compound, but in the quantity of spare taken with them for the afternoon ride. At the end of the three specials just finished we had the answer.
Thierry Neuville closes the second stage of the Rallye Monte-Carlo as leader thanks to a great performance in Special Stage 14, the 21.37 kilometer Pellafol / Agnières-en-Dévoluy 2, which puts him right back at the top of the general classification of the 2024 prologue of the WRC.
This allows Neuville to bring home – virtually, we remind you: he will have to finish the match tomorrow to actually get them – 18 points guaranteed today by the new scoring system which makes its debut this weekend.
Beyond the purely mathematical aspect that will lead to the first World Championship ranking being drawn up tomorrow, the fight for first place that took place today was extraordinary. 5 leadership changes between Elfyn Evans, Sébastien Ogier and the Belgian from Hyundai Motorsport, who finished ahead of everyone at the best moment.
Neuville had taken the lead of the race already during the morning thanks to a great performance in SS9, on the verglas, but then in the afternoon lap Ogier played the spare tire only card, carrying less weight with him and making good use of this factor in SS12 and PS13.
Neuville, however, preferred the two spare tyres. Until today's final test it seemed like it might have been the wrong choice, but on SS14 that extra tire worked in his favor and led him to end the day as leader with a margin of 3.3″ over Ogier, who now remained his unique – but dangerous – rival for success.
Neuville did 4″1 better than Ogier on SS14 by winning the sixth stage of his event. The Gap champion was the only one to keep his gap from the Belgian under 10 seconds. Ott Tanak, third, is the first to 10″1, then Takamoto Katsuta at 11″9 and gradually all the others.
Evans' day started as the leader, but ended in third place, out of contention for the victory and over half a minute behind the leader, 34″9 to be precise. The only duel left to be defined tomorrow will be therefore the most important one, the one for the victory. Said of Evans now third, Ott Tanak is firmly in fourth place but unable to improve his ranking due to being too far from those in front of him and those chasing him.
Adrien Forumaux is managing his lead over Andreas Mikkelsen without taking risks: his goal is to maintain fifth place, which would be his best career result in Monte-Carlo and the best way to forget the terrible accident two years ago. Andreas Mikkelsen improved his feeling with the i20 N Rally1, but his sixth place is more the result of Gregoire Munster's retirement than his own real merits. Takamoto Katsuta managed to get back into the Top 10 after losing it due to the PS3 going off the road on a patch of ice yesterday. Now the Japanese driver from Toyota is seventh, but 7 and a half minutes behind the leader.
As in the WRC, the WRC2 featured yet another leadership change featuring Nikolay Gryazin and Pepe Lopez. The Russian from Citroen Racing set a better time than the Iberian and finished ahead in the general classification by just 2 tenths of a second. This too will be a challenge to keep an eye on tomorrow, as it could continue until the end.
And that's not all, because Yohan Rossel could be the third wheel. The second Citroen Racing driver is still third, but slyly 6″9 from the top of the class. The Frenchman has always been a formidable opponent for everyone and should not be underestimated.
The second stage of the Rallye Monte-Carlo ends here. The event will resume tomorrow with the last stage consisting of three special stages. The first of these, the PS15 La Bréole / Selonnet 3 of 18.31 kilometers which will start at 07:04 Italian time.
#WRC #Rallye #MonteCarlo #SS14 #Neuville #takes #lead
