Ogier keeps control in Monte-Carlo

By notably signing the scratch in the fourth special of the Rally Monte-Carlo in Roussieux, Sébastien Ogier (M-Sport) a augmenté son avance en tête du classement. Si le quintuple champion du WRC was not really satisfied with his choice of tires where he favored super soft compounds in anticipation of rainy weather, the Frenchman returned to the service park with a lead of more than 40 seconds over Ott Tänak (Toyota) qui a gagné pas moins de trois places ce matin.

L’Estonien a notamment profité de l’abandon d’Andreas Mikkelsen (Hyundai) victime d’une casse de courroie d’alternateur à l’issue du premier parcours de la matinée. La nouvelle recrue de Toyota Gazoo Racing précède la Hyundai i20 WRC de Dani Sordo de sept secondes.

Esapekka Lappi (Toyota) maintains fourth position, now 17 seconds behind the Spaniard. The Finn remains ahead of his compatriot and teammate Jari-Matti Latvala who is a dozen seconds behind the second Yaris WRC.

Kris Meeke (Citroën) was able to move up to sixth place even though he remains lacking pace. The event goes even less well for his teammate Craig Breen who broke a brake when hitting a stone and fell to tenth position. Bryan Bouffier (M-Sport) took the opportunity to climb to seventh place ahead of Elfyn Evans (M-Sport), author of the scratch in SS5, and Thierry Neuville victim this time of a puncture in SS3.

Jan Kopecky (Skoda) took the lead in WRC 2 but the Czech remains threatened by Éric Camilli (Ford) who is only four seconds behind his Fabia R5. The Belgian Guillaume de Mevius climbed onto the provisional podium in the category at the wheel of his Peugeot 208 T16 R5 taking advantage of Teemu Suninen (Ford) going off the road in SS4. Stéphane Sarrazin (Skoda) occupies third place in the RC2, just eight tenths behind his compatriot Éric Camilli.

The crews will compete in the second pass of the second stage of the Monte-Carlo Rally from 13:58 p.m.