Looking at the dearth of snow and lack of ice in volume, you’d think this wasn’t a traditional Monte Carlo Rally.
But it very much is. There’s a constant on this rally, and one that’s having an outsized effect on the outcome. The route note crews are probably going to end up deciding this one. They, more than the drivers themselves, influenced the outcome of Saturday morning in the mountains.
Friday had been about Toyota: Sébastien Ogier slowly homing in on Elfyn Evans. Then Pellafol/Agnières-en-Dévoluy came along and rewrote the script: this was Thierry Neuville’s time to shine.
Neuville scalped a walloping 18.8s out of the nine-time Monte winner and another 9.2s out of rally leader Evans.
The reason why? Route note crews.
Ogiers "weather crew" car went off#WRC #RallyeMonteCarlo pic.twitter.com/yEgf1GzMT0
— Fun for spectators / Yleisölle viihdettä (@FunForSpectator) January 26, 2024
It’s been a tough rally for Ogier’s gang. Simon Jean-Joseph, a two-time European champion, rolled the road-going GR Yaris bearing RNC17 on the doors on Friday while passing through stage five. That said, based on Ogier’s stage-winning times, that unfortunate incident had perhaps highlighted the correct level of caution required.
On Friday morning, they’d been too conservative.
Ogier told DirtFish: “It was a painful one for sure,” he said, referring to the massive time loss early on. |I didn’t manage to find a rhythm in the frosty section; we got information, we tried a little bit too safe and then I was too hesitant everywhere.”
It was the opposite story in Neuville’s camp. His route note crew had gone the other way and written ice notes with slightly too deft a hand – but it worked.
“I had a bit more ice [on the stage] than I had in my notes,” explained Neuville. “Through a couple of places, I had surprises but I could see from far it was more icy than expected and slow down the speed.”
It may sound like pure luck. But that luck goes both ways for crews throughout the rally.
“But it was the same for me yesterday; in one stage I lost 17 seconds just because there was much more ice in my notes than there was in reality. And that’s where you lose the time.”
A symbiotic relationship between the rally crew and the stages makes all the difference on the Monte. Oliver Solberg is a case in point.
Though Solberg has now retired with a double puncture, on Friday his pace was wayward, dictated mostly by the notes. Rapid when they were right, well off the pace when not.
His route note crew is all-new for this rally: Bryan Bouffier and Denis Giraudet had been a staple of his setup for years but both were competing this time around, so Eric Camilli and Stephane Prevot were drafted in – a pair with plenty of Monte and WRC experience.
But that only mattered so much. They weren’t in sync yet.
“Thursday night, and this Friday morning loop, I was a lot relying on gravel crew, and I think maybe we were a bit too careful, and maybe we tried to anticipate things a little bit more,” Solberg said.
Solberg was still keen to point out the thoroughness of the job his new gravel crew was doing; it’s more a question of optimization.
“They are doing a great job of course, but there a lot of information in there, and maybe sometimes you don’t need it,” Solberg added. “So it’s just trying to find that fine line.
“It’s their first time working with me so it goes both ways, I have to work with them also to do things better.”
Drivers spend time chasing car balance, tweaking the setup for that sweet spot. But on Monte, it seems, as with any traditional Monte, it’s the route note crews finding a sweet spot that’s making the biggest difference.
