Solberg has been the star of the opening round of the World Rally Championship season so far, beginning Saturday over a minute ahead of his vastly more experienced Toyota team-mates.
The longest stage of the rally, La Bréole / Bellaffaire, kicked off the third leg and after two punishing days thus far, competitors weren’t given any respite.
Proper wintry conditions greeted them with ice and snow a factor on both of the morning’s two stages.
Ogier won the final two tests on Friday, and carried that momentum onto SS10 as he set the pace by 3.5s over Evans. That allowed him to close to just 3.0s behind overall, and seemingly on course to steal second place.
But it all changed on SS11, as road cleaning effect came to the fore and the crews’ route note information proved more conservative than the true road conditions.
Ogier admitted he “didn’t take the advantage of the road improving” and was “too slow”, setting just the fifth fastest time as Evans upped his advantage to 10.3s.
“[It’s] very, very difficult,” said the Welshman. “Initially you come onto some ice and snow which is bad enough, but when you come on the slush it’s just a lottery. When you have snow and ice in your notes and you have to brake almost normally, it’s not a nice feeling.”
Solberg however bested them both. While he was only fourth quickest on SS10, the Swede beat everyone by 11.4s on SS11 to bring his lead advantage back north of a minute (1m02.8s).
“The studs are working now, it’s a bit easier!” he said. “This morning was so much thick ice and I didn’t prep the stud very well, it was too risky to push – it could’ve been all over in a second. In here it was better, changing all the time so you’ve got to have your eyes very much open. But sometimes you s*** your pants!”
Elsewhere there was no change on the leaderboard, with large gaps already existing between most of the Rally1 runners.
Ogier's chances of an 11th Monte Carlo victory are becoming increasingly remote
Adrien Fourmaux is fourth, 54.9s ahead of Hyundai team-mate Thierry Neuville, who described the first stage of the day as “27m49.1s of pure stress!”
Jon Armstrong picked up a front right puncture on SS10 as he clipped a bridge towards the end of the stage, but he extended his advantage over Hyundai’s Hayden Paddon who confessed he’d never seen conditions like this before in his career.
“It’s getting harder and harder because I know we have to finish, and when you have to finish the room for error is so small,” said Paddon.
“I can’t get any rhythm or anything… maybe John [Kennard, co-driver] can hop in this thing. I don’t do the passenger seat so I’d stand there at the start-line and wave him goodbye!”
Takamoto Katsuta is closing in fast on Paddon’s seventh place. With the power-steering on his Toyota now fully operational, he went third fastest on SS10 and fourth quickest on SS11 to move to just 19.7s adrift of Paddon having started the day over two minutes behind.
