Thierry Neuville probably didn't expect to have such a smile on his face as he returned to the service park on Thursday night. Because for his first official appearance as reigning champion, the Belgian's main goal was to finish this first loop, without really worrying about the time, or at least giving it slightly less importance than usual.
However, it was he who was leading the general classification after the first three special stages, without having experienced technical problems or made any mistakes unlike a Sébastien Ogier who had a big scare in SS3 that almost cost him dearly. It's hard to do better.
« If we sum it up like this, it was obviously a good start., smiled Thierry Neuville. But to be completely honest, it was very demanding. Firstly because we were discovering the tyres in drier conditions on the first stage… I didn’t know how much I could push with these tyres, where the limit was so it wasn’t so easy.
But I was able to gradually increase my pace and that allowed me to feel more comfortable. The changes in settings too. We always went in the right direction. That's what I remember above all.
During the last special, black ice was starting to form, there was a lot of mud at the beginning… I had a good pace until the end where there was a lot of gravel, no lines. I felt like I was sweeping the road on a rally of land. We lost 5 seconds in the last two kilometers »
Six special stages are on the programme for this Friday at the Rallye Monte-Carlo. All of them can be followed on AUTOhebdo.
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