Rallye Monte-Carlo – A rather positive assessment for Hankook

By the end of Friday, half of the Monte Carlo stages will have been run. There will be 9 more to go between Saturday and Sunday. A lot can still happen, but so far the first appearance of Hankook tyres in the WRC has been relatively satisfactory.

Published 24/01/2025 à 18:02

Loïc ROCCI

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Rallye Monte-Carlo – A rather positive assessment for Hankook

So far, drivers have not been too critical of the WRC's new tyre manufacturer (Photo: Bastien Roux/DPPI)

There was a lot of uncertainty at the start of this 93e edition of the Monte Carlo. The short duration of the tests and the impossibility of testing the entire range planned for the event left many questions unanswered. The most alarmist even predicted a disaster… which did not happen.

Featuring three night SS, representing a little over 54 km, the start was long enough and selective enough to get a first idea of ​​the behavior of the Korean tires. At the end of its three sections, it was positive to note that there were no negative comments about the tires. Certainly, drivers like Thierry Neuville ou Ott Tänak indicated that they had discovered the Hankooks in conditions they had never encountered during their test day, but that did not mean that they were unhappy with them. On the manufacturer's side, the message before the rally had been simple since the representatives on the Monte Carlo had warned that their tires would work perfectly on dry or wet ground. The other positive information that came out of the evening was the absence of punctures despite a road surface on which there were many ropes and where pollution was omnipresent.

A new type of challenge awaited the competitors on Friday with times featuring wet, icy and even frosty sections. Like the day before, some drivers were again surprised by their lack of familiarity with the Hankooks, such as Thierry Neuville in SS6, but there were no particularly negative comments. Sami Pajari finished SS6 with a puncture, but this was mainly due to an error on his part. The one suffered by Grégoire Munster in SS8 was more unexplained, with the Luxembourger saying that he had not touched anything. During the first loop, the driver M-Sport had been one of the main animators with a daring choice by not taking studded tires. His two 2es time had shown that the tires were playing their role perfectly. If these two days went well overall, another challenge awaits the competitors and their wheels tomorrow with the longest loops of the event (more than 55 km) including a 27 km time trial (SS10/13).

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Loïc ROCCI

Journalist specializing in rallying past, present and future... and with a southern accent

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1 Comment (s)

E

enzo

25/01/2025 at 11:09 a.m.

move on, there's nothing to see... yet 3 punctures including the 2nd one leaving Neuville after a puncture... tires that overheat quite quickly (despite a long warm-up), inconsistent, snow tires incapable of evacuating (fortunately this Monte Carlo is spring-like)... in short, auto hebdo may not want to lose its advertising pages from the Korean manufacturer....

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