Elfyn Evans had the honor of winning the very first stage of the World Rally Championship season – beating Solberg by 5.6s on a wet opening test.
But as the rally moved north from Monaco to Gap, crews were greeted by snow and ice in what proved to be a demanding second stage.
In such tricky conditions, bravery would be rewarded and Solberg proved to be the bravest – smashing everyone by over 30s to storm into the lead at the expense of Evans. Incredibly, 18 of those seconds were made up in the final mile alone.
Solberg’s performance earned him a 25.5s lead for the day’s final stage, where the road conditions were more forgiving. However, thick fog towards the end of the stage added yet another dimension to a demanding evening.
Sébastien Ogier ended up fastest on that final test, but every single driver complained about the visibility – Evans and Thierry Neuville both passionately calling for the stage to be canceled.
Seven Rally1 cars did complete it before the test was red flagged, giving both Jon Armstrong and Hayden Paddon notional times.
The net result is Solberg leads by 44.2s over Toyota team-mate Evans. Ogier is third, 1m08.6s off Solberg’s lead, having lost basically all of that on SS2 – which he labelled the least enjoyable stage of his career.
Prior to SS3, Armstrong had been third overall – setting the third fastest time on SS2 – on his first leg as a Rally1 driver. But his notional time – on a stage where he had overshot a corner – dropped him to fifth.
Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville is fourth with his Hyundai team-mate Adrien Fourmaux team-mate sixth after the Frenchman briefly got stuck in a ditch on SS3.
A seemingly incredulous Fourmaux explained: “There is quite a lot of fog now in the stage, it was difficult to see, and the spectators put a lot of smoke which is nice with no fog, but now it’s just blind. I went in the ditch without seeing where I was.”
Takamoto Katsuta is 39.2s adrift of Fourmaux after backing off tremendously in the fog but ahead of a relieved Hayden Paddon, while Grégoire Munster lost over two minutes as he lost his power-steering.
“With so many cuts, it’s so narrow and twisty at the beginning, I will feel it tomorrow,” he said.
Neither Sami Pajari nor Josh McErlean made it to the end of Thursday; the pair retiring on SS2 after an incident at the same icy corner. McErlean slid off the road and got stuck, while Pajari clipped a bridge and destroyed his rear-left wheel.
Eric Camilli leads the WRC2 class in his Škoda as drama befell both of the Lancias. Yohan Rossel broke a wheel on the opening stage when he turned in too early and clipped a rockface, while Nikolay Gryazin damaged his suspension.
