Ogier in the lead ahead of Mikkelsen at shakedown

Sébastien Ogier (Ford Fiesta WRC) did not wait to show off. The former Volkswagen driver set the reference time for the shakedown of Rally Monte-Carlo by completing the course in 2'18''1 during its first pass. The resident of M-Sport was 4 seconds ahead of his former teammate Andreas Mikkelsen, even though he was driving a Skoda Fabia R5 that was much less efficient than the new WRCs.

Ott Tänak (Ford Fiesta WRC) completes the top three ahead of the Toyota Yaris WRC by Jari-Matti Latvala and the Hyundai i20 WRC of Hayden Paddon and Dani Sordo. Juho Hänninen (Toyota Yaris WRC) finished 7th ahead of Thierry Neuville (Hyundai i20 WRC).

Éric Camilli placed his Fiesta R5 in 9th place ahead of Jan Kopecky (Fabia R5), Bryan Bouffier (Fiesta R5), Quentin Gilbert (Fiesta R5) and Quentin Giordano (Peugeot 208 T16 R5).

The Citroën drivers are behind. Craig Breen (DS 3 WRC) is beyond the top 15, preceding his teammates Stéphane Lefebvre and Kris Meeke installed in the new C3 WRC.

However, the differences do not represent the performance of the crews. Some drivers notably preferred to use super soft tires in order to conserve other types of rubber for the race.

The start of the Monte-Carlo Rally will be given this Thursday, January 19 at 20:14 p.m. with two special stages on the program. SS1, the 21,25km Entrevaux – Ubraye special, will be broadcast live on L'Équipe 21. The event will also be followed in live text on our site.