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World Champion Thierry Neuville (Hyundai) was leading the 93rd Monte-Carlo Rally when he reached Gap Service Park on Thursday evening, at the end of a first evening dominated by the Toyotas, in terms of pure performance: 2 best times for Sébastien Ogier and the third for Elfyn Evans. And by the resilience of the Belgian driver, always at the top of the standings and eventually leading when it was time to go to bed.
Thursday’s third and final special stage, between Avançon and Notre-Dame-du-Laus (SS3, 13.97 km), was marked by a superb performance from Elfyn Evans (Toyota), the runner-up in the previous World Championship. “I didn’t feel confident in the first two stages, but I felt much better in the third,” said the Welshman at the end. And with good reason: he had just beaten Neuville, by 5.4 seconds, and Rovanperä, by 10.7 seconds, on a relatively short, bumpy stage that was very dirty in places.
“I didn’t think it would be so slippery. I got trapped, but it’s not so bad at the end,” conceded Ogier, who made his first small mistake of the rally. A big slip midway through the stage almost sent him down an embankment, but his experience spoke for itself. The Gap native stopped his Yaris just in time to get back on the road and finish 23.5 seconds behind Evans. All his efforts on the first two stages had been undone, but that’s the Monte Carlo law. The slightest error is paid for in cash, especially in the evening, when road conditions are very difficult to guess.
Unruly fans, neutralized stage…
As expected, the end of the stage was lit up by a host of smoke bombs and fireworks, as the fans were very numerous in this very fast section. Another driver to lose ground on SS3 was Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai): 27.8 seconds down on Evans, after being hot on his heels after the first two stages. “I was very careful with the ice patches. It’s a very long rally…” said the 29-year-old Frenchman, recruited this winter by the South Korean brand.
In the overall standings, Neuville is in the lead after the first evening and will continue to lead the way tomorrow morning, around Gap. Behind him, two Toyota drivers, Evans at 2 seconds and Ogier at 12.8 seconds, will lead the chase. They will be closely followed by the other two Hyundai drivers, Ott Tänak and Adrien Fourmaux, at 27 and 30 seconds respectively. In WRC2, the suspense is also intact, but Nikolay Gryazin, in his Skoda Fabia RS, dominated the first evening, despite a burst of pride from Oliver Solberg (Toyota Yaris Rally2), the fastest on SS3.
This SS3 was interrupted, then definitively neutralized after the start of Eric Camilli, entered in WRC2. This was due to a few unruly spectators, who were finally deprived of the passage of some fifty competitors on the most spectacular stage of the evening.
