Elfyn Evans has become the third different Rallye Monte-Carlo leader in four stages, while World Rally champion Ott Tänak crashed out of fourth place on his Hyundai debut.
The 12.85-mile St Clément–Sur–Durnance / Freissinières stage is all-new to the Monte-Carlo itinerary and caught Tänak out. He flew off the road over a high-speed compression and into a massive accident. He and co-driver Martin Järveoja are reported to be unhurt.
Evans would fair significantly better though, taking his second scratch time of the weekend to overhaul Thierry Neuville into the lead of the rally.
But in typical Evans fashion, he was understated about this feat: “The feeling is pretty OK, let’s say not absolutely perfect in here but overall very good,” he commented.
Sébastien Ogier lost 3.4 seconds to team-mate Evans on SS4 but has closed to within 2.1s of Neuville’s Hyundai after outpacing him by 5.4s on the test.
Neuville struggled with the handling of his Hyundai and bemoaned the time lost passing Tänak’s accident. He is now 3.4s behind Evans in second with just 5.5s separating the top three.
Sébastien Loeb has been promoted to fourth place following team-mate Tänak’s spectacular demise but is 31.4s shy of the podium. The nine-time champion wasn’t convinced his tyre choice of four super-softs and two softs was correct for the stage.
M-Sport’s charge is lead by Esapekka Lappi in fifth place. But Lappi was unhappy: ““We are too slow but I can’t do any better at the moment,” he said.
Kalle Rovanperä has steadily risen to sixth place on his WRC top-class debut for Toyota and kept tabs on Lappi ahead, losing just 0.1s on SS4 to trail by 25.3s overall.
Takamoto Katsuta is seventh in a fourth Yaris WRC ahead of a confused Eric Camilli, who had damaged steering aboard his Citroen C3 R5.
Camilli was therefore sapped of confidence but he still leads WRC3, although Stéphane Sarrazin is now just 10.6s behind him in a Hyundai i20 R5.
Ole Christian Veiby is the WRC2 leader in 10th overall.
Leading positions after SS4
1 Evans (Toyota)
2 Neuville (Hyundai) +3.4s
3 Ogier (Toyota) +5.5s
4 Loeb (Hyundai) +36.9s
5 Lappi (M-Sport Ford) +1m08.0s
6 Rovanperä (Toyota) +1m33.3s
7 Katsuta (Toyota) +3m26.0s
8 Camilli (Citroën) +3m42.2s
9 Sarrazin (Hyundai) +3m52.8s
10 Veiby (Hyundai) +3m55.8s
