Thierry Neuville and Sébastien Ogier are engaged in a titanic scrap for victory on the Monte Carlo Rally, while early leader Elfyn Evans fell away into third place.
Neuville dominated Saturday morning and took the lead before midday service – but Ogier was quick to strike back.
Nine-time Monte winner Ogier pushed to make amends for dropping 18.8s on Esparron-Oze’s morning pass and won the re-run, clawing 5.5s back on Neuville. He then won the following stage to take the lead.
But Neuville was in the zone: he blitzed the final test, putting 4.1s on the field and quickly reestablished himself at the head of the leaderboard.
Neuville was in his element on Saturday
Wearing a broad smile, he had nothing but praise for the machine underneath him: “It was perfection,” he said. “Everything went well. I really enjoyed the car. Incredible.
“I had a good feeling so I went for it and it feels like it’s paying off.”
Ogier looked as if he had no answer for Neuville’s blinding pace on the final test of the day: “I try since the first stage of the rally so it’s nothing different really,” he said of his pace. “It looks like we need to try harder tomorrow.”
Evans has simply dropped off the pace of the leading duo: a few seconds were lost to a hybrid outage on the second stage of Saturday morning but, broadly speaking, he simply wasn’t matching the pace of the leading duo.
That affects the title battle immediately: with the new points system, Neuville will take 18 from the last three days and Evans 13, should both finish the rally tomorrow.
Evans has lost the feeling from Thursday, when he won both stages and had a double-digit lead
“This afternoon’s not been what we hoped for. The feeling is not where it was for some reason. It’s a shame; we struggled in the dirty conditions.”
Ott Tänak is still acclimatizing to the i20 N Rally1, off the pace of Neuville but comfortably the fourth-fastest driver throughout the day. One exception was Agnières-en-Dévoluy, in which he tied for the stage win with his teammate.
But he was still not happy with the power delivery on his car: “It’s difficult to assess,” said Tänak. “Since the beginning of the rally I’ve been in trouble with the old engine topic, so it’s difficult to know how it would be.”
M-Sport is down to one car with Adrien Fourmaux in fifth place, 57.4s behind Tänak and satisfied to simply hold position. Grégoire Munster in the other Ford Puma crashed out on stage 12.
M-Sport's goal for Fourmaux has been set out: stay put and finish the job tomorrow
Andreas Mikkelsen had been in a tight-knit battle for sixth place with Munster heading into Saturday afternoon, the battle coming about thanks to Mikkelsen sliding off the road on a patch of ice on the first pass of La Bâtie-Neuve.
But, rather ironically, that same test would be the undoing of Munster second time around, skidding wide on a patch of gravel and clattering into a wooden fence.
His Puma was perched awkwardly on the edge of the road, his wheels not touching the ground. Without a group of spectators nearby to push the car down, he was unable to unstick his car and he retired on the spot.
That leaves Mikkelsen in no man’s land; Fourmaux is 1m33.7s up the road and Takamoto Katsuta 3m14.2s behind.
Katsuta's priority will be the two points-scoring opportunities on Sunday: day points and powerstage points
Katsuta successfully overhauled the WRC2 field during the afternoon loop. He’d lost over five minutes on Friday morning after sliding off the road on ice and getting stuck in a snowbank; by Saturday afternoon he’d recovered to seventh place, getting four points on the board – so long as he finishes on Sunday.
The merry-go-round at the head of the WRC2 field continued. Nikolay Gryazin had established a lead in the Saturday morning loop but Pepe López put his foot down on the second pass of Esparron-Oze, beating Gryazin by 10.8s to retake the lead.
But it didn’t last; he was only third-fastest behind both works-backed Citroëns and on the final stage of the day, Gryazin retook the lead – just. They’re separated by a sliver, a 0.2s gap a good reflection of how closely fought WRC2 honors have been so far.
López battling for victory is somewhat against the odds: his record on the Monte is one podium and two retirements
Yohan Rossel, last year’s WRC2 winner on the Monte, remains in the mix for victory, 6.9s off the top spot. That leading trio has left the rest of the field well behind; Hyundai i20N Rally2 driver Nicolas Ciamin is 3m15.1s off the top spot in fourth.
Sami Pajari, who isn’t registered to score points, is fifth and leads a trio of Toyota GR Yaris Rally2s on the car’s WRC debut. Stéphane Lefebvre and Jan Solans are sixth and seventh.
