Barely arrived in the parc fermé in Valence, Jean-Claude Andruet spoke of his reunion, half a century after his legendary victory in a blue Alpine Renault. And indeed, given his smile, the idyll has never died out! Still on the attack, the former French judo champion (one more string to his bow) and seller of golf carts, among other activities, is ready for Tuesday’s final Leg and closing fireworks, in Col de Turini. With an Alpine that was fixed somewhat miraculously, Sunday evening, at the CH of RS7, thanks to a mechanic who lived nearby…

© Scuderia del Grifone

They had not yet managed to win a special in this 25th Rallye Monte-Carlo Historique, it’s done and it’s well-deserved. The Italian couple in the 1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia 1600 TI, Giovanni and Tiziana Chiesa, took first place, all alone, in the SR7 between Lamastre and Colombier-le-Jeune (13.558km), on the last stage of this first day of the Common Leg. They beat another Italian crew, Maurizio Aiolfi and Carlo Merenda, in a 1975 Lancia Beta Coupé 1800, who tied for 2^nd place with Spanish duo Esteban Munne-Olga Feliu, in a 2000 Seat 124 Especial from 1977. It was a long day, with different stage winners but a hierarchy that is beginning to take shape in the overall standings. Every crew returned to Valence very tired, but with lots of memories in mind. Monday, the 2^nd day of the Common Leg, with four other stages on the menu, should make it possible to settle the situation a little.

A first stage has been completed! For the 272 competitors who arrived in the Principality on Friday evening, their faces showed the level of difficulty for the Concentration Leg. Five of them saw their participation come to a premature end. Some of them left on Tuesday morning from Oslo and the journey to Monaco was a good start before the first regularity stages which will start tomorrow.

He did it, without shaking, by managing perfectly, until the end, the 91st Rally Monte-Carlo: Sébastien Ogier, 39, won his 9th Rally Monte-Carlo since 2009, on Sunday in the Principality, taking half of the stage wins (9 out of 18) and leading from start to finish. This had only happened four times in the 21st century, so the Frenchman was entitled to call this a “perfect weekend”, without any arrogance.

On the list of faultless performances in Monaco, by leaders of a “Monte” from start to finish, Ogier (2018, 2023) equalizes with Loeb (2005, 2007). The only other member of this very select club is Finnish driver Mikko Hirvonen (2010, with Ford). So this is an extremely rare performance, once more, that the driver from the Hautes-Alpes, now a luxury freelancer in the WRC, has just completed.

This is the 56th victory in WRC for the 8-time World Champion (vs 80 for the other Seb, Loeb) but it is the very first for his new co-driver Vincent Landais, in only their second joint outing in competition (4th in Japan at the end of 2022).

“It’s never easy here and Kalle (Rovanperä) was only 16 seconds behind me this morning, after taking big chances on Saturday,” Ogier also said. In this opening round of the 2023 season, Ogier faced the reigning World Champion, on equal terms, in the same type of car. There was a game but the Frenchman did not yield anything. He first created a gap on Friday, then he managed it on Saturday and Sunday, trying to avoid a puncture like the one that cost him victory in 2022, in the last stage, at the end of his memorable duel with Loeb. The method reminded us of his recent era of unchallenged domination of the WRC, crowned by eight world titles: from 2013 to 2016 at Volkswagen, in 2017 and 2018 at M-Sport Ford, in 2020 and 2021 at Toyota.

This record 9th win, in a completely dry Monte-Carlo, at the wheel of a dominating Yaris, launched the WRC season perfectly. And the final podium reflects the situation, with a 1-2 for Toyota Gazoo Racing and a deserved podium for Thierry Neuville (Hyundai Motorsport). This is also the first podium for Cyril Abiteboul (ex-Renault F1) as a team manager of the South Korean team, starting a year which will inevitably be marked by a new duel between Toyota Gazoo Racing and Hyundai Motorsport. Behind Elfyn Evans (4th), the last big fight of the weekend pitted another Toyota driver, Takamoto Katsuta, against an M-Sport Ford driver, Estonian Ott Tänak. The 2019 World Champion (at Toyota) won the day, by a minute, although there was only a tenth of a second between the two drivers at the start of SS18. A suspension issue wasted all the progress of the Japanese since the start and gave Tänak a reason to look forward to Rally Sweden in February. In the world championship standings, Ogier the freelancer is in the lead, just two points ahead of Rovanperä who took five Power Stage points for the 12th time in WRC. The young Finn will start Rally Sweden as favorite, since Ogier will be at home with his family. As for the 2024 edition of Rally Monte-Carlo, it may have a certain Seb Ogier on the entry list. “To make it a round figure”, Ogier smiled on Sunday, in Monaco.

The ultimate favorite of the 91st Rally Monte-Carlo, Sébastien Ogier, took his 9th record win on Sunday at Col de Turini. In front of the reigning world champion, Finnish youngster Kalle Rovanperä who ended this 2023 edition in style by winning the Power Stage and taking five bonus points to launch his defending campaign in the World Rally Championship (WRC).

“It’s huge, it’s my rally, the one that made me dream. A victory here is priceless,” Ogier said as he climbed off the roof of his Toyota Yaris, at the end of SS18. “This is my 56th victory in the WRC, but it is the first for my co-driver Vincent Landais. He deserves it because he did a great job. It was a perfect weekend”, added the new record holder for wins in a Rally Monte-Carlo, welcomed by his parents at the finish of this last stage.

The final podium of this rally, with Ogier and Rovanperä (Toyota Gazoo Racing) followed by Thierry Neuville (Hyundai Motorsport), perfectly reflects the way this completely dry event took place, on asphalt roads where the only notable traps, in some stages, were rocks detached from the road banks by the passage of numerous competitors.

The first three avoided all the pitfalls and the others did what they could, confronted to punctures, power steering failures, hybrid system issues, bad tire choices. They all experienced ups and downs, in all classes of the standings, in the purest tradition of Rally Monte-Carlo.

In the final standings, behind the Ogier-Rovanperä-Neuville trio, the honors were taken by Elfyn Evans (4th) in another Toyota, Ott Tänak (5th) in the M-Sport team’s fastest hybrid Ford Fiesta, and Takamoto Katsuta (6th), also in a Toyota, who was delayed by an untimely puncture in SS18.

In WRC2, Russia’s Nikolay Gryazin (Skoda Fabia), who races under the banner of his national Automobile Club, resisted Yohan Rossel (Citroën C3) until the end. In this high-level class, the podium was completed by Spaniard Pepe Lopez (Hyundai i20N).

Power Stage (ES/SS 18, Col de Turini) :
1.       Rovanperä (Toyota)     5 pts
2.       Tänak (M-Sport Ford)  4 pts
3.       Evans (Toyota)               3 pts
4.       Neuville (Hyundai)        2 pts
5.       Ogier (Toyota)                1 pt

“It was the stage with the greatest risks of a puncture, so I was very careful, same as for the first run this morning. I am happy that this stage is behind me”, a relieved Ogier said at the end of this long stage (21.78km) contested with full headlights glowing between Ubraye and Entrevaux.

The Finnish reigning World Champion sent a serious warning to his glorious elder from Hautes-Alpes: 9.8 seconds all at once, enough to bring down to 16 seconds the gap with Ogier in the overall standings, instead of 36 seconds in the morning, when all crews left the Port of Monaco.

Following his first two stage wins of the year, Saturday afternoon, Thierry Neuville (Hyundai Motorsport) showed once again that he was taking good measure of his new i20, by setting the second fastest time in SS14. And once again, he was quicker than Elfyn Evans, who will start Sunday with a 24.5 debit on the Belgian, in sight of the final podium but with a mountain to climb.

When Ogier set off for the Port of Monaco, he knew that he had four more stages (SS15 to SS18) to manage properly, quietly and cleanly on Sunday, i.e. 67 km timed.

Leading the rally since Thursday evening, the 8-time world champion is still looking for a record 9thsuccess in the Principality. The only thing he could accept not winning on Sunday is the Power Stage.

Belgian Thierry Neuville (Hyundai Motorsport) won his first stage of the 91st Rally Monte-Carlo, and of the 2023 WRC season, during the second pass between Le Fugeret and Thorame-Haute (SS12, 16.8 km). The first stage win not scored by a Toyota Gazoo Racing driver since the start on Thursday evening.

“I’m happy, I had a good pace,” said the Belgian on the finish line at the bottom of Colle Saint-Michel. This was his 323rd stage win in WRC (143 starts, 55 podiums, 17 wins). A great performance against dominating Toyota Yaris and a great reward for his now legendary ability to resist, his patience and his undisputable talent behind the wheel.

After this SS12, Neuville is still 3rd overall, 39 seconds behind Sébastien Ogier and only 9.5 seconds behind Kalle Rovanperä, and still holds a good margin (19.5 seconds) over Elfyn Evans, Toyota’s third top driver.  Enough to consider the rest of the operations with serenity, especially if a puncture, always possible with increasingly worn out Soft and Super Soft Pirelli tires, disrupts the general classification, at one time or another.

In WRC2, the situation is stable, as Russian Nikolay Gryazin (Skoda Fabia) is still in control against his two main French rivals, Yohan Rossel and Stéphane Lefebvre (Citroën C3). They will also have to be wary of the stones and all those traps making up the timeless charm of Rally Monte-Carlo, sometimes causing twists and turns.

“I didn’t push too hard, I just tried to do a clean stage. My car seemed more efficient than this morning”, said Rovanperä, the youngest World Champion in the history of WRC, at the end of SS8, where Sébastien Loeb had won in 2022 ahead of Ogier, just one year ago. He then set off for Monaco with a 36-second debit over his French team-mate, and ten more stages to negotiate on Saturday and Sunday morning.

“I’m very happy, obviously the risk of punctures was higher in this stage, so I took it easy. I am just happy to be able to bring the car back to the service park,” Ogier said a few minutes later. He had punctured a tire in this stage last year, in the heat of a final battle with Loeb, and offered an historic win to his greatest rival.

Saturday morning, when all drivers leave Monaco for the six stages of Day 3, Ogier will also be 37.9 seconds ahead of Thierry Neuville (Hyundai), 3rd, 54.2 seconds ahead of Ott Tänak (M-Sport Ford), 4th, and 1:02.3 minute ahead of Elfyn Evans (Toyota), who suffered a very costly puncture in the morning. This makes it three Toyota drivers in the Top 5, with over 175 timed kilometers to race. Place your bets!

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!