Monte-Carlo Rally – Towards an Evans-Ogier match after the Friday morning loop

Ranking Rally Monte-Carlo 2024 after SS5:

• Already in the lead on Thursday evening, Elfyn Evans (Toyota) isolated himself at the head of operations this Friday morning at the 2024 Monte-Carlo Rally, the first round of the season WRC. The Welshman took advantage of the troubles of Hyundai to build a margin of around twenty seconds after four stages.
• Evans cannot rest on his laurels. Its scratching hair is called Sébastien Ogier (Toyota). The record holder for victories in Monte-Carlo (9) achieved an anthology SS5, to take 11 seconds from his teammate! The Frenchman is now 10″7 behind the leader, in 2nd place.
• Third, Thierry Neuville (Hyundai) was guilty of a spin during SS4. The Belgian could not explain this incident, but luckily he did not hit any obstacle and only lost around ten seconds.

The fault of Thierry Neuville. 😩😵‍💫

📸 Julien D – Monte Carlo Rally Group 2024 #WRC #Rally #Rally #RallyMonteCarlo #WRCLive pic.twitter.com/GXiBUsRSGA

— Scratch time! (@RallyeI) January 26, 2024

• The Monte-Carlo is set to take place almost entirely on dry roads. The weather is very mild and there is no snow. In these conditions, all cars run on soft or super soft tires.
• The first loop on Friday morning in the Nice hinterland caused some damage among the contenders for victory. In SS3, an icy turn surprised several drivers. Ott Tänak (Hyundai) lost 40 seconds (video below), Grégoire Munster (M-Sport Ford) a minute. But the heaviest bill goes to Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota, video 2), who dropped 5 minutes!

Thank you, fans 🤌 pic.twitter.com/amjC6jobpa

— Hyundai Motorsport (@HMSGOfficial) January 26, 2024

#RallyMonteCarlo When T.Katsuta went off the road into a ditch then in SS3. pic.twitter.com/0m1zGbLnpM via @ma_ipp #Katsuta

— Valmar Viisel (@paddocknews) January 26, 2024

• At M-Sport Ford, Adrien fourmaux does the job. The Frenchman, once again promoted to the premier category, holds 4th place.
• Return to the top complicated for Andreas Mikkelsen (Hyundai). The Norwegian pays for his lack of training with the Rally1 hybrid. He has already conceded more than two minutes to Elfyn Evans, while the outgoing double WRC2 champion has not made any driving errors.
• In WRC2, the battle rages between three drivers. Nikolay Gryazin (Citroën), Yohan Rossel (Citroën) and Pepe Lopez (Skoda). At the break, it was the last named who led with a few tenths of a margin over the Russian who was riding under a Bulgarian license. Frenchman Rossel is 3rd, a few seconds behind.
• The Monte-Carlo Rally will resume at 14:56 p.m. and can be followed in live text on AUTOhebdo.fr.

ALSO READ > Route, timetables, entrants… The complete guide to the 2024 Monte-Carlo Rally