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In the shadow of the show, impressive logistics are put in place to guarantee the safety of the Rallye Monte-Carlo. With more than 500 people mobilised by the Automobile Club de Monaco, every detail is meticulously studied and orchestrated to ensure that the event runs smoothly.
In this 8-minute documentary, take a look behind the scenes of the Rallye Monte-Carlo with the safety teams. Find out about the various challenges and problems faced by the organisers in ensuring the safety of spectators and competitors. The documentary gives the floor to the main stakeholders, including the event’s Race Director (Romain Pugliese), the Head of Security (Eric Pannier), as well as representatives of the local authorities, the gendarmerie and the fire brigade.
Here’s the full video!
Sébastien Ogier, in his Gazoo Racing Toyota Yaris, led from the start of the 93rd Rallye Monte-Carlo on Thursday evening, setting two fastest times from the outset. He then recuperated the lead at the end of SS8, on Friday, and kept it till the end. Sunday’s win is his 10th in Monte-Carlo, the new absolute record, nine of them in the WRC (and one in the IRC, in 2009). This is also his 62nd victory in the World Rally Championship, including eight since he became a luxury freelancer in 2021, with Vincent Landais as his new co-driver. And he added a little extra panache by winning the final Power Stage, on Sunday, by just two-tenths of a second. A fantastic champion.
‘What a weekend! We had so many moments. I think my lucky star followed me all the way to the end. It’s the star of my uncle, who died last year. This victory is for him,’ said an exhausted and emotional Ogier on the finish line of the Power Stage. It was his 46th win in a Power Stage and his 106th podium in the WRC since his very first, in 2009 at the Acropolis Rally, in Greece.
Ogier at the top
Ogier, an eight-time world champion, has won many rallies for Citroën, Volkswagen and Toyota. He also drove for Skoda in WRC2, while waiting for VW to enter the WRC. On every continent, he has demonstrated his versatility, racing intelligence, speed and lucidity. He is the all-time record holder for Monte Carlo wins, which is only logical, after all.
To maintain his status as the absolute benchmark in the world’s most prestigious rally, Ogier had to battle for four days against three other World Champions, Thierry Neuville (2024) and Ott Tänak (2019) for Hyundai, as well as Kalle Rovanperä (2022, 2023) for Toyota. It was the strongest line-up in the Principality for nearly twenty years. With the added bonus of two very tough drivers, Elfyn Evans (Toyota), four times runner-up in the World Championship in the past five years, and Adrien Fourmaux, recruited this winter by Hyundai Motorsport, after five podiums last year for M-Sport Ford. Adrien kept up the suspense right up to the start of the final stage.
Thanks to his experience, and even though it was ‘complicated’ from start to finish, as he often stressed this weekend, Ogier held out until this 18th special stage. He had four studded tyres and two super-soft, just like his team-mate Evans, and it all came down to the last downhill portion, after Col de Turini, when the Welshman made a minimal mistake and lost just a few tenths. But the overall win was already decided, as Ogier had perfectly managed his 18.2 second lead, at the start of SS18, throughout the last 17.9 km of this opening event of 2025.
The great lottery of road conditions and tyre choices
In the great lottery of weather and road conditions, which are always very changeable on a Monte Carlo, Fourmaux tried everything he could, but he could not take the first win of his WRC career, after five podium finishes with M-Sport Ford last year. But that’s all in the balance, as he took another podium finish, his 6th in the WRC, and will take consolation in the title of revelation of this 2025 edition, having made very few mistakes in some really tricky conditions.
The final Power Stage (SS18) enabled Ogier to pick up a further 5 bonus points to take the lead of the World Championship for now, and the classification for Sunday’s Super Sunday (also with 5 bonus points) was won by Evans to complete the Japanese marque’s double. This is only the third 1-2 for the Japanese brand in the Principality, after Ogier-Evans in 2021 and Ogier-Rovanperä in 2023.
French grand slam in all classes!
In addition to Ogier and Fourmaux, the colours of French rallying were also brilliantly defended by another handful of talented drivers: Yohan Rossel (Citroën), the 2021 WRC3 champion, won the WRC2 category for the third time in Monte-Carlo, in his PH Sport Citroën C3, ahead of Eric Camilli (Hyundai) and Léo Rossel (C3), his younger brother. As for Sarah Rumeau, competing in WRC2 in another C3, with the support of the French Federation of Motorsport (FFSA), she finished a very respectable 19th overall, out of 68 starters.
Arthur Pelamourgues, in a Renault Clio, won the WRC3 category. Last, but not least, 17-year-old Eliott Delecour, the son of François (winner in 1994), finished in the top half of the table at the wheel of a small Opel Corsa entered in the Rally4 category, with two-wheel drive, having beaten several drivers far more experienced than him, at the wheel of much more powerful cars. From Fourmaux to Delecour, via the Rossel brothers and Sarah Rumeau, the next generation of French rally drivers is ready.
It was also, once again, a memorable event for the organizers at Automobile Club de Monaco (ACM): only one special stage was cancelled (SS5), for safety reasons, and the event was a huge success with the public in all the cities, towns and villages where fans watched the action. This was thanks to the patience and dedication of dozens of ACM volunteers from all professions. Most of them won’t have time to rest, as the 2025 edition of the Rallye Monte-Carlo Historique gets underway next Wednesday!
🌟2025 WINNERS 🌟#RallyeMonteCarlo #WRC pic.twitter.com/FxQWZKwow2
— Automobile Club de Monaco (@ACM_Media) January 26, 2025
With the top three all within 22.2 seconds of each other ahead of the grand finale at around midday on the Col de Turini, the 93rd Monte-Carlo Rally was going to be a battle to the finish. It’s hard to say whether Sébastien Ogier (Toyota) will be able to hold off Elfyn Evans (Toyota) and Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai) to claim an historic 10th victory in the Principality. It was the fault of the Korean marque’s new French driver, who started with a daring choice of tyres that paid big dividends on SS17, between Digne-les-Bains and Chaudon Norante (19.01km).
‘It was a bit of a gamble and it worked out’, said Fourmaux, who set off from Gap this morning with 4 Hankook super-tendres and two studded tyres on his car and in his boot, like Kalle Rovanperä, the two-time Finnish world champion. It wasn’t the best choice in SS16 at the start of the morning, where the two drivers limited the damage. But it was the one that almost hit the jackpot on SS17, when Fourmaux set the fastest time, his second of the rally, 4.5 seconds ahead of Rovanperä. And the gaps were substantial at a crucial moment.
Over and above the raw result, it was the gaps over less than 20km that once again turned the general classification upside down. Fourmaux took back 23.9 seconds from Ogier, who left Gap with 2 super-soft tyres and 4 studded (just like Evans), and remains in the lead of the rally. He also inflicted a 17.8-second sanction to Evans, who remains second, but only just. The Welshman now has a lead of just four seconds over the Frenchman, who is back in 3rd place.
This performance was also achieved at the expense of his world champion team-mate, Ott Tänak, with whom he will be battling for a podium finish in the Principality, or better, if one of the leading Toyotas fails, in the last stage.
Behind Ogier, two Toyota-Hyundai duels
Behind the leading trio, and for the same reasons (different tyre choices), Tänak also lost a lot of ground on SS17: 27.8 seconds down on Fourmaux, and so 3rd place is gone, not to mention the fact that Rovanperä can now hope to steal 4th place from him, depending on what happens in the judge of peace, Col de Turini, at the stroke of midday.
These 17.92km between Bollène-Vésubie and Peïra-Cava, as is often the case in the Monte-Carlo, will be decisive on several levels of the overall classification. The top of the stage and the famous pass were still covered in snow this morning, but the snow was likely to melt throughout the morning… except in the very shady parts of the climb.
So we’ll have to wait until 1 pm, approximately, to find out who was right, very early this morning, after the gravel crews had passed, making predictions. And whether Ogier will be able to win his 10th Rallye Monte-Carlo, including 9 in the WRC. ‘This rally has been very complicated since the start, so we’ll see…’ smiled the eight-time world champion before setting off again for the Alpes-Maritimes. He knew that anything was possible in the final kilometres, as was often the case in the legend of Rallye Monte Carlo…
The leader of the 93rd Rallye Monte-Carlo, Sébastien Ogier (Toyota), aiming at an historic 10th win in the Principality, set the fastest time on SS16 (between Avançon and Notre-Dame-du-Laus, 13.97km) very early on Sunday morning. But he’s not out of the woods yet, as there are still two stages to go for his rivals too, with different tyre choices. As for Ott Tänak (Hyundai), following on from Saturday (4 scratch times out of 6), he started the day by taking 3rd place overall standings, behind the two Toyotas of Ogier and Elfyn Evans.
‘I’m really happy that this stage is behind me, because it was very slippery and very tricky,’ said a very relieved Ogier at the end of the stage. ‘I set the fastest time, but we all chose different tyres, so it’s quite possible that I’ll lose time on the next one,’ added the eight-time world champion, after increasing his lead over Evans by four seconds over 14 km, up to 24.3 seconds.
It was 6.45 am and pitch dark when the first car set off on SS16, the Ford Puma of Grégoire Munster, and a few minutes later two Toyotas were out of the race. Takamoto Katsuta at first, not very fast, in a right-hand bend, and Sami Pajari’s a bit later, much more spectacularly, at the entrance of a small bridge. In other words, two cars out of the race, and crews OK, on the very first timed kilometres of the last day, giving a welcome double warning to the four candidates for podium: Ogier, Evans, Tänak and Adrien Fourmaux, i.e. two Toyota drivers and two Hyundai drivers.
This 16th stage, the first on the way back to Monaco, had already been covered on Thursday evening before arriving in Gap. The conditions were very different, with many excited fans who had annoyed Ogier a little with their smoke bombs and fireworks. The atmosphere was a little less festive this morning at daybreak, and the Frenchman didn’t mind. Having set off from Gap with 4 studded tyres and two super-soft, just like Evans, he had no assurance that this was the right choice to finish the 51km loop on Sunday’s menu, including the closing Power Stage (SS18). After all, the snow at the top of Col de Turini was likely to melt quite quickly…
In WRC2, there is much less suspense, as Yohan Rossel (Citroën C3) is on a different planet, with a lead of over three minutes on Eric Camilli (Hyundai i20) and Léo Rossel (Citroën C3), still battling for 2nd place.
The penultimate day of the 93rd Rallye Monte-Carlo ended with another fastest time from Ott Tänak (Hyundai), his fourth in the six stages contested on Saturday. Sébastien Ogier (Toyota), still the leader, now has a lead of just 20.3 seconds over team-mate Elfyn Evans, back in 2nd place overall ahead of the final three stages scheduled for Sunday morning, on the way back to Monaco. Suspense guaranteed, because the final podium will be coveted by four drivers, including two World Champions, and there will only be three places available at the top of the Col de Turini.
‘I found it a bit difficult to enjoy the stage,’ said Ogier, who was a little tired after limiting the damage once again in the face of an unleashed Tänak. The Estonian completed this ultra-fast special stage at an average speed of 100 kph, driving at 190 kph on a plateau very popular with fans, between La Bâtie-des-Fonts and Aspremont (17.85 km).
Once again on Saturday, Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai) had to give up 2nd place to Evans, but nothing is lost for Sunday. The biggest risk for the rally’s top three, after 15 out of 18 stages, is that Tänak will be as ‘hot’ on Sunday morning as he was all day on Saturday: ‘I’ve found some new settings and I’m starting to get used to the new tyres, and they’re working pretty well,’ said the Estonian, who was crowned champion in 2019, but has never yet won in Monaco.
‘The conditions are really complicated and I had a bit more trouble with the feeling this afternoon, but that’s fine. It’s my first weekend in the car in the WRC, so it’s really positive,’ admitted Fourmaux before returning to Gap. One thing is already certain: he has negotiated very well his first outing in a works Hyundai, until now. All that remains is for him to score some big points in the championship, especially as the Korean team leader, Neuville, is having a tough weekend.
Everything to play for on Sunday
Tänak is capable of catching Ogier on Sunday, as he is only 27.1 seconds behind the eight-time world champion, but the Frenchman remains confident: ‘It’s better to be 20 seconds ahead (of Evans) than behind, before the final day, but there are still some tricky stages to negotiate’, he stressed, before setting off again for Gap, his home town. The top four in the overall standings are grouped together in 27 seconds, and behind them it’s a different story: the three other Toyota drivers, Kalle Rovanperä (4th at 55 seconds), Takamoto Katsuta (5th at 1 minute 43) and Sami Pajari (6th at over 4 minutes), don’t have much left to hope for, apart from the bonus points on Sunday.
That’s exactly what Thierry Neuville, the winner last year and 2024 World Champion, is aiming for: ‘We’ve made a few more adjustments. We’re moving in a better direction. Will that be enough for tomorrow? I don’t know, we’ll see what the conditions are like tomorrow. If the conditions are complicated, that could be an advantage or a disadvantage for us. The aim is to take a few points tomorrow and then turn the page on this weekend, because there will be more interesting weekends for us.’
Most of the competitors fitted headlamp ramps to the front bonnet of their cars before the start of SS15. They will need them again on Sunday morning, as the first stage is scheduled shortly after 6.30am, between Avançon and Notre-Dame-du-Laus (13.97km). It’s a stage that was already covered on the opening night on Thursday, but in very different conditions. We look forward to Sunday!
The 14th special stage of the 93rd Rallye Monte-Carlo, shortened by 5km as it was this morning for safety reasons, enabled Ott Tänak, the 2019 world champion, to add a third best time to his tally in 2025, his second in a row after SS13.
The Estonian, still 4th in the overall standings, pulled even closer to Elfyn Evans (Toyota), at 8.8 seconds, while Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai) provisionally regained second place, 7 tenths ahead of the Welsh vice-world champion. So it’s a three-way battle for two places on the podium behind Sébastien Ogier (Toyota), who is still clinging on to his lead.
‘Ott (Tänak) made a different choice of tyres to us and that’s good for him. It allows him to get away from Kalle (Rovanperä), but it also means that he’s getting closer to me, so I’m going to have to start paying attention,’ commented Fourmaux. He now only has a lead of around ten seconds over his Hyundai team-mate, who has set three fastest times out of five since Saturday morning.
Tänak did better than Seb Ogier (2nd) and Thierry Neuville (3rd) on this stage. ‘It’s more of a gravel rally than an asphalt rally, it was so dirty! I’m happy to have finished this one,’ said Ogier, who now has a 24.4-second lead over Fourmaux.
As for the Belgian world champion, he hit something at km 2, at the very start of the stage: ‘I’m fighting hard, it’s very difficult to keep the car on the road. We’re continuing to fight, trying to improve things for tomorrow. It’s not easy at all. We had vibrations, I think the right rear rim must be damaged or something.’
Night falls very quickly on the Drôme in January, so that the last amateur competitors will have to set up headlamp ramps to negotiate SS15 before returning, at night, to the Service Park in Gap.
Saturday afternoon got off to a good start for Ott Tänak, Hyundai’s other World Champion, who set the fastest time on SS13 between La Motte-Chalançon and Saint-Nazaire-le-Désert (27km). It was his second fastest time of the rally, after ES11 this morning, improving by over 20 seconds on the time set earlier in the morning by Grégoire Munster (Ford Puma) on the first run (ES10).
Thanks to this good performance, the Estonian, crowned in 2019, has regained 4th place in the overall standings which he had already occupied on Friday morning, after SS4. He thus overtook Kalle Rovanperä (Toyota), who really does not feel at ease on this Monte-Carlo, as he much prefers to slide on dirt or snow, but not on icy patches.
‘We had a good pace and fairly consistent [road] conditions. I had a better feeling. The [road] conditions have definitely changed too,’ said Tänak at the stop. As for Munster, he said he was ‘less comfortable than this morning. It wasn’t great, and my four soft tyres tended to overheat, especially the rear tyres’. The Luxemburg driver had set his first ever fastest stage time in WRC this morning.
In another change to the overall standings, Elfyn Evans (Toyota) moved back ahead of Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai) to take second place, 18.4 seconds behind Sébastien Ogier, still the leader. ‘I didn’t have a good feeling on this stage, I was too cautious and I didn’t manage to attack enough,’ lamented the man from the north of France, but he was only 1.7 seconds behind Evans after SS13.
The battle continued as the stages progressed, with both drivers feeling more or less at ease. ‘Everything’s under control, I’m feeling better in the car,’ said Evans, who doesn’t usually give away too many details about his state of mind in the cockpit of a WRC car. And it’s hard to imagine the Welshman coming back on Ogier, who is still going strong as an old hand at Monte Carlo: ‘It was a good stage for me, in good conditions, with good grip. I tried to take it easy on the tyres. To win the rally, you have to be consistent’.
Another constraint from this afternoon is to take it easy on the tyres ahead of Sunday morning, when there will be, at best, ten points to take, including a maximum of five for the classification on the final day, and a maximum of five in the Power Stage. Finally, in the WRC2 category, Yohan Rossel (Citroën C3) now has a lead of more than three minutes over Eric Camilli, a former M-Sport competitor in WRC, who is still battling with Yohan’s brother Léo for second place of this class.
A seventh different driver has won a special stage in this 93rd edition of Rallye Monte-Carlo, Japan’s Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota), taking advantage of his position on the road, just like Gregoire Munster and Ott Tänak before him on Saturday morning in the Drôme. And Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai) consolidated his 2nd place, 17.2 seconds behind Sébastien Ogier (Toyota), still the solid leader of this first round of 2025.
This morning’s last special stage, between La Bâtie des Fonts and Aspremont (SS12, 17.85km), was very fast and followed by many spectators who arrived early. It enabled Katsuta to add a 41st stage win to his already impressive collection of five WRC podiums, in the space of 77 rallies since Finland 2016. He is the first Japanese driver to win a stage, ever, in a Rallye Monte-Carlo. And in the history of Japanese rallying, he still has one objective: to win a WRC event, like his compatriot Kenjiro Shinozuka in 1991 at the Ivory Coast Rally (formerly known as Bandama Rally).
‘This was a really difficult stage, I don’t know why, but it was so slippery and at the end of the stage it was very greasy. We had slick tyres and the car was sliding all over the place. It was quite a strange feeling, but I really enjoyed myself. Kalle [Rovanperä] must have enjoyed it as well, the sliding part…’ joked 31-year-old Katsuta, who is now on the honour roll of this 93rd edition, whatever happens on Sunday.
Thierry Neuville (Hyundai) was in for a surprise on SS12, feeling better after an accumulation of problems since Friday morning, and he set the 2nd fastest time without the slightest problem, also on a cleaner road than his rivals: ‘It’s the first stage I’ve really been able to enjoy this weekend to be honest, I felt better in the car, we made a few changes to the set-up. We’re still looking for grip in general, so you can’t be too confident. But the feeling was better. You have to find a balance between grip and car control, and that balance isn’t ideal yet,’ explained the reigning world champion.
In the overall standings, as the surviving competitors returned to the service park in Gap for a welcome mid-day break, Ogier now has a 17.2 second lead over Fourmaux and a 20 second advantage over Evans. In the WRC2 category, the French festival continues, with Yohan Rossel (Citroën C3) the undisputed leader, and a duel for the runner-up spot between Eric Camilli and Yohan’s brother Léo. To be continued.
The 11th special stage of the 93rd Rallye Monte-Carlo, shortened by 5km for safety reasons, enabled Hyundai to score a double success: Ott Tänak, the 2019 world champion, clocked his first stage win of the rally, and of 2025, while Adrien Fourmaux took 2nd place overall, which he had been chasing since yesterday, from Elfyn Evans (Toyota). As for Sébastien Ogier (Toyota), who was not at ease on this stage between Aucelon and Recoubeau-Jansac (15.48 km instead of 20.85 km), he lost a few seconds but maintained his lead.
‘I’m feeling better, it was a comfortable stage,’ soberly summed up Tänak, the 6th stage winner of this rally after Sébastien Ogier (4 best times), Elfyn Evans (2), Kalle Rovanperä, Adrien Fourmaux and Grégoire Munster this morning. ‘I didn’t like this stage at all, it was a nightmare for me: too narrow, too slow, very polluted. It didn’t work for me,’ said Kalle Rovanperä, the two-time Toyota world champion, who finished 7th, 14 seconds behind Tänak, over 15km. That’s one second more than his Estonian rival for every kilometre covered.
‘It was very, very dirty, so we drove safely, without taking too many risks. Fortunately, the dangerous part of the stage had been removed,’ said Ogier of this slightly different stage, the second of the loop in the Drôme. ‘It resembled Critérium de Cévennes,’ added Alexandre Coria, Fourmaux’s co-driver. The two Frenchmen from Hyundai are now in a position to threaten Ogier, as they are now 2nd in the overall standings, just 12.3 seconds behind the nine-time winner of the most legendary event in the WRC Championship.
However, nothing is over yet, as Evans is only half a second behind Fourmaux, and Tänak and Rovanperä are just behind, without having given up yet. They have never won the Monte Carlo Rally but they have a lot of talent and there are still four stages to be contested today, plus three tomorrow morning on the way back to Monaco. For Neuville, the reigning world champion, the aim now is to ‘learn the new tires and take big points on Sunday morning’, thanks to the updated WRC’s points system. But that’s another story…
Day 3 of the 93rd Rallye Monte-Carlo got off to a surprise start with Grégoire Munster, M-Sport Ford’s top driver this season, setting his first ever best time in a WRC stage. It came on SS10, between La Motte-Chalançon and Saint-Nazaire-le-Désert (27km), when he was the first to pass on a dry, cleaner road than for his main rivals, as the sun rose over the Drôme mountains.
Munster was first on the road because of a major power failure last night on the road section to Gap Service Park, which cost him a 10-minute penalty in the overall classification. When this happened, Grégoire in 6th place overall, at the end of a very satisfying rallying day.
‘Congratulations to Grégoire. He was fast yesterday and he’s on the right track. But there were big differences in the road conditions between his run and mine,’ said Sébastien Ogier, a good sport but a realist. As leader, and because of the reverse starting order, it was a much dirtier road than Munster, with dirt coming off the ropes, that the eight-time world champion encountered. Hence the small gap in performance at the end: just 8 tenths, over 27 km, but that in no way detracts from the merits of the driver from Benelux.
‘It was really tricky, there was a bit of everything: some wet sections with muddy ropes, then a much faster and wider road. It’s a challenge for sure, and I was happy to be the first on the road for this one. Of course I’m disappointed about yesterday, but the team did a good job and managed the night well to allow us to be here again today, so it’s a good way to learn,’ said Munster at the stop. He then waited quietly in his cockpit to see if his rivals were doing better than him. Until deliverance and a great moment of emotion, alongside his team-mate Louis Louka. Damn dust in the eye.
It was Grégoire Munster’s first ever WRC stage win, but not the first for a driver with a Luxembourg driving licence. Grégoire has dual nationality, Belgian (through his father, a former rally driver) and Luxembourgish (through his mother). And just 48 years ago, at the 1977 Monte-Carlo Rally, two drivers from the Grand Duchy shone: Alain Beauchef, who won the first special stage between Les Chanets and La Vilette in a 2000 Ford Escort RS. Then, at the end of the same edition, Nicolas Koob (Porsche 911 Carrera RS) in SS26, between Roquestéron and Bouyon. To complete the picture, the winner that year was Italian legend Sandro Munari, whose mythical Lancia Stratos graces the official poster of the 2025 Rallye Monte-Carlo Historique (January 29-February 4).
In the overall classification of this 93rd edition, not much has changed. Ogier still leads. Just behind him, Elfyn Evans (Toyota) and Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai), battling for 2nd place (1.6 seconds apart), set the same time, to the nearest tenth, on SS10. Thierry Neuville (Hyundai), meanwhile, lost another minute after his electronics were completely reset at the start of the stage. When it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.
