“Honestly, I took a lot of risks to compensate,” Ogier said during the mid-day pause in Puget-Théniers. Crews were only allowed to change tires, but no help by mechanics was allowed. With a 30-second lead, Ogier could plan to manage a bit, as he had to wait for the evening service to have his electric power unit fixed.

This SS6 had another benefit for Toyota Gazoo Racing: it allowed Kalle Rovanperä, the young reigning World Champion, to take 2nd place away from Thierry Neuville, the Belgian leader of Hyundai Motorsport. “It’s starting to get better,” said Rovanperä at the break. After starting this opening round of WRC 2023 in cautious mode, he is now starting to find his rhythm. In SS6, he finished two seconds behind Evans and half a second only behind Ogier.

After SS6, there is only a four-tenths difference between Rovanperä (2nd) and Neuville (3rd), both 36 seconds behind Ogier. Slightly further back, Ott Tänak (M-Sport Ford), 4th at 44 seconds, and Elfyn Evans (Toyota), 5th at 54 seconds, are still battling for honours. In WRC2, Russian Nikolay Gryazin (Skoda Fabia) continues to resist against two Frenchmen driving Citroën C3s, Yohan Rossel and Stéphane Lefebvre.

Neuville took advantage of his 3rd place in SS5 (Briançonnet-Entrevaux, 14.55km) and of a puncture for Elfyn Evans (Toyota) to jump in 2nd  place, 32.7 seconds behind an untouchable, implacable Ogier .

Only the reigning World Champion, Kalle Rovanperä (Toyota), managed to worry Ogier in this stage, by increasing his pace and not without risk: a big hit at the right rear of his Yaris resulted in a torn-out bumper, and maybe deprived him of a first stage win in this 2023 edition of the “Monte”.

“My tire choice was not perfect. On the first big braking point, I had less grip than expected and I came out of the corner too wide,” the 22-year-old Finn calmly summarized. Thanks to Evans’s puncture and Ott Tänak’s lack of pace, Rovanperä is now 3rd overall, 34.5 seconds behind Ogier but only two seconds behind Neuville.

As for Pierre-Louis Loubet, in the other works Puma, he crossed a meadow, hitting a sign post and damaging his car, because of a probable power steering issue, losing a minute and a half in total. He is further down in the standings, also because the leaders of the WRC2 category are firing up on all cylinders. To be continued.

On the occasion of the 91st Rallye Monte-Carlo, pupils from Monaco met the World Rally Championship drivers on Thursday 19 January. Aged between 9 and 14, the children from La Condamine, St-Charles, FANB and Charles III schools were able to share a special moment with these champions. The programme included questions and answers, autographs and selfies with the drivers of the Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT, M-Sport Ford WRT, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT, TOKSPORT WRT – Skoda and Citroën Racing teams.

All kinds of topics were discussed, like “What is your favourite rally?”/”Have you had a big accident?”/”How long does a career in rallying last?” or “Are you better than your teammate?”/”Do you have special shoes to drive?”/”Do you play video games?” or “How did you become friends?

The drivers enjoyed answering these questions in a good mood and with goodwill. A unique memory just hours before the start of the Rallye Monte-Carlo!

Seb Ogier ahead of Elfyn Evans and Kalle Rovanperä: Toyota Gazoo Racing started Day 2 of the 91st  Rally Monte-Carlo on a high, by setting the three best times of a completely dry SS3 over 18.33km between Roure, Roubion and Beuil. The eight-time World Champion added 3.2 seconds to the tally of the Welshman and 6.1 to his credit on the young Finn, and reigning world champion. A good way to show who remains the WRC boss … when he comes to play around, between two family obligations across the Rhine.

This morning, Ogier had left the port of Monaco with three Pirelli Soft tires and two Super Soft, a choice linked to the quota of tires available for the entire rally: “The truth is that we don’t have so many Soft tires for the whole rally (20 Soft and 24 Super Soft to compete in 18 special stages), so we can’t take too many on board. In the end, we don’t need to have one more”, Ogier explained after his third win in as many stages since Thursday evening in Col de Turini.

Behind the trio of Toyota drivers, the gaps continued to widen, with Belgian Thierry Neuville (Hyundai Motorsport) in one of his favorite roles: best of the others, 4th at 7.8 seconds of Ogier, ahead of both M-Sport Ford drivers, Ott Tänak, the 2019 World Champion, 5th at eight seconds, and Pierre-Louis Loubet, very focused for his debut in the “Monte” in a hybrid WRC, only two tenths behind his team leader. Very promising.

With regards to the particularly tough WRC2 field, battle resumed on Friday morning between Russia’s Nikolay Gryazin (Skoda Fabia), racing under a neutral flag, and two Frenchmen, Yohan Rossel and Stéphane Lefebvre, embarked in a couple of Citroën C3 Rally2. After SS3, Gryazin is 17.6 seconds ahead of Rossel and holds a 21.6 advantage over Lefebvre.

He did not come as a tourist, Sébastien Ogier, to the 91st Monte-Carlo Rally: two stage wins to start without any hesitation in the process, and without leaving crumbs for his well-armed rivals. In SS2, between La Cabanette and Col de Castillon (24.90km), the eight-time World Champion upped the pace and relegated Elfyn Evans, his Toyota Gazoo Racing teammate, 4.7 seconds back, instead of 1.3 second in SS1, over 15 km.

“For once, we are not opening the road and that is a real advantage”, Ogier explained at the end of SS2. Starting in sixth position on the road, by virtue of the 2022 WRC classification, the luxury freelancer of the Japanese brand was not surprised in the very slippery left corner, with numerous spectators, located at km 10.5 of this SS2. A few minutes after another one of his teammates, 2022 World Champion Kalle Rovanperä, made a mistake, as did Belgian Thierry Neuville (Hyundai), exactly in the same turn.

“I don’t know what happened, I had no grip and I certainly wasn’t the first to get caught out. I could see the tracks on the road but it was too late to react,” Neuville said. He lost around ten seconds in the incident, just like Rovanperä. This is two seconds more than 2019 champion Ott Tänak (M-Sport Ford), still faced with power cuts when he changed gears in his hybrid Ford Puma.

After these first two tricky stages, everyone returned to the Port of Monaco for a well-deserved night’s rest. This first day had started early, with the Peille shakedown, and it ended more than twelve hours later, at Col de Castillon. Friday will be even more challenging with six special stages on the card (SS3 to SS8), i.e. 105 km of pure rallying around Puget-Théniers and Entrevaux (Alpes de Haute-Provence).

At the start on Friday morning, Ogier will hold a six-second advantage on Evans (2^nd), and he will also benefit from a 15.4 margin over Tänak (3^rd) and 15.5 over Neuville (4^th), the former teammates at Hyundai. He stands 17.1 ahead of Rovanperä (5^th), the “new generation” Finn, 32.1 over Dani Sordo (6^th) in another Hyundai, and 40.3 over Pierre-Louis Loubet (7^th) in the other works Puma of the M-Sport Ford team. Bring on Day 2!

Two Toyota drivers at the forefront, but not necessarily those we expected: the first special stage of 91st Rally Monte-Carlo, Thursday evening in prestigious Col de Turini, allowed Sébastien Ogier to take his first stage win of the week, ahead of Welshman Elfyn Evans. The Frenchman had been the quickest driver in the shakedown session, on Thursday morning, near Peille. He left no chance to any of his rivals and seized the chance to become the very first leader of this 2023 edition.

“It was fine, the conditions were very dry but very slippery at the end, because of the salt on the road. This is a very clean start for us. Anyone who says he is not tense either has a problem or he is lying”, Ogier said at the end of this SS1 (15.12km). Behind Ogier and Evans, honors were taken by Thierry Neuville (Hyundai) in 3^rd place and Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota) in 4^th, followed by Kalle Rovanperä (Toyota) in 5^th.

That is four Toyota Yaris in the Top 5 of this nightly opening stage. And three slightly slower drivers: Ott Tänak (M-Sport Ford) 6^th and eight seconds behind Ogier, because he suffered electrical problems in his hybrid Ford Puma, Pierre-Louis Loubet (M-Sport Ford) 7^th at 10 seconds because he was a little too cautious for his first night in the Turini in a WRC car, and Dani Sordo (Hyundai) 9^th at 12 seconds, due to a lack of confidence after two years of absence in the opening round of the WRC.

They came in large numbers and they were not disappointed, grassroots fans as well as guests of the Automobile Club of Monaco (ACM): the starting ceremony for the 91^st Rally Monte-Carlo, early Thursday evening, was a tremendous success, starting with the best shots of the 2022 WRC season projected on the facade of the Casino, covered with a red and white checkerboard thanks to a superb light show.

The 74 crews entered (following the last-minute withdrawal of Sami Pajari, ill) then paraded on the podium erected in front of Café de Paris. The ten hybrid cars left the podium quietly, thanks to their electric power, and all the other cars made a bit more noise, but not too much, reminding those nostalgic fans of a bygone era, when you could hear rally cars from afar.

Almost all drivers told the official speaker that they hoped to manage as well as possible this first evening of racing, with two great special stages on the menu: La Bollène-Vésubie – Col de Turini (SS1, 15.12km) followed by La Cabanette – Col de Castillon (SS2, 24.90km). The two major favourites were ready to fight, Sébastien Ogier, looking for a record 9^th victory in the Principality, and Kalle Rovanperä, 22, the reigning world champion. Two Toyota drivers that their main rivals are determined to bother all week-end, at Hyundai Motorsport as well as at M-Sport Ford.

The time is dizzying from the outset: 1:44.6 over 2.29km between Sainte-Agnès and Peille, on the third pass this Thursday morning, much quicker than 1:50.4 last year on the same route, in similar conditions, by the same driver in the same car, well almost… Each time, the best shakedown time for Sébastien Ogier (Toyota Gazoo Racing), eight-time world champion in search of a record 9^th victory in the Principality, on Sunday.

That is almost six seconds better, or three seconds per kilometer, which gives an idea of the spectacular improvements of Ogier’s Toyota Yaris, one year after its official debut in January 2022. In the first pass, Ogier was already four seconds faster than last year, an improvement – thanks to the maximum utilisation of the hybrid boost – of two seconds per kilometer. « It’s hard to know what to expect. The conditions changing from the recce to the rally can make it very exciting and, of course, the tyre strategy can spice things up on the race compared with other events. “

Just behind Ogier, the gaps also make you dizzy: 7 drivers grouped together in just one and a half second, between 1:44.6 for the Frenchman and 1:46.1 for Ott Tänak (M-Sport Ford), the 2019 world champion (7^th), four tenths behind his new teammate, young Frenchman Pierre-Louis Loubet (6^th).

Last but not least, the reigning World Champion, Kalle Rovanperä, is ready to go. He clocked the 2^nd time this morning, three tenths only behind his glorious team-mate at Toyota Gazoo Racing. Can’t wait for the first two special stages on Thursday evening!