Elfyn Evans destroyed rivals Sébastien Ogier and Thierry Neuville on La Bréole-Selonnet to assume the lead of Rallye Monte-Carlo by 4.8 seconds over Toyota team-mate Ogier.
The La Bréole-Selonnet stage that concluded Saturday morning’s loop was icy in the middle but not as icy as a lot of the crews were expecting due to the sun thawing the conditions.
Evans, who had lost time to both Ogier and Neuville on the previous test, threw caution to the wind and stole 7.6s from Ogier and 13.8s from Neuville to rocket into the lead of the rally.
“Yeah, it was a good run,” Evans said. “I felt I was able to be smooth and carry good speed in good places and tried not to destroy the studs [on the tires] in the first part.
“But it’s difficult, because the sun’s been out, to second guess where the sun has been on the road.”
Outgoing leader Ogier revealed it was “hard to trust” his gravel crew’s notes about the conditions becaue what they saw two hours earlier did not match what was in the stage now the sun was out.
“Yeah it’s OK I’m happy to go through because it’s very difficult information,” he said.
Neuville had been fastest on SS9 to close to within 5.6s of the rally lead but now finds himself 16.6s back from Evans and nine seconds adrift of Ogier heading into the afternoon.
“I thought I had a good stage but when I see the times maybe it’s not good enough,” he commented.
Behind the leading trio, Sébastien Loeb was uncharacteristically off the pace in fourth as he confessed to “trying to save the tyres at the beginning but maybe a bit too much”.
Loeb gave up 19.5s to Esapekka Lappi behind him in what has been a challenging morning for the Hyundai star.
Despite the upturn in pace, Lappi described his stage as “horrible” but managed to pull 8.4s out of Kalle Rovanperä who is behind him in sixth.
“The safety crew… I know their job is really difficult as the sun is out and it’s melting so much but I feel like I’m an idiot so it’s very difficult,” Lappi added.
Rovanperä by contrast was happier with his run in what is becoming the least-enthusiastic squabble of the rally over fifth place.
“This one was better,” admitted the 19-year-old. “I tried to be more clean on the Tarmac sections. I think on the previous one I was too aggressive.”
Takamoto Katsuta had a clean run following his moment with a snowbank on St-Léger-Les-Mèlézes / La Bâtie-Neuve. He trails WRC3 leader Eric Camilli by 39.5s.
Camilli’s strong rally continues as his buffer over second-placed Nicolas Ciamin extended on SS10.
Mads Ostberg is 10th overall and leads WRC3 but Ole Christian Veiby is lurking just 13.1s behind.
Ostberg wasn’t happy though, describing his C3 R5 as “completely undriveable” with a wayward set-up
Gus Greensmith set a strong time on La Bréole-Selonnet, going fifth fastest, but admitted his focus was elsewhere.
“After yesterday it’s [ice] the last thing that I want to see,” he joked. “[We’re] just rebuilding the confidence; that’s what today’s about and I’m definitely enjoying the driving.”
Both Greensmith and M-Sport team-mate Teemu Suninen who “expected more ice” on the stage are outside the top 10 points scoring positions following their retirements on Friday and Thursday respectively.
Leading positions after SS10
1 Evans (Toyota)
2 Ogier (Toyota) +4.8s
3 Neuville (Hyundai) +16.6s
4 Loeb (Hyundai) +1m56.2s
5 Lappi (M-Sport Ford) +2m31.4s
6 Rovanperä (Toyota) +2m59.3s
7 Camilli (Citroën) +9m10.2s
8 Katsuta (Toyota) +9m49.7s
9 Ciamin (Hyundai) +10m32.4s
10 Ostberg (Citroën) +10m52.0s
