Sébastien Ogier has started Friday as he finished Thursday by extending his Monte Carlo Rally lead, but it’s now a Toyota 1-2-3 with Kalle Rovanperä now up to third.
Tires could prove to be a big talking point of Friday morning as the leading runners all opted for diverging strategies.
M-Sport’s runners have each taken six super-soft Pirellis, second-placed Evans went for four super-soft and two soft, Thierry Neuville and Rovanperä took three of each while rally leader Ogier opted for just one spare in his package for the loop – taking three super-soft and two soft.
The form could therefore fluctuate between the leaders, but Ogier – who’s so far yet to be beaten to a stage win in 2023 – still appears to be boss as he beat Evans by 3.2 seconds, extending his lead to 9.2s.
“The truth is we don’t have so many soft tires for the rally so you can’t take too many, so in the end I didn’t want to carry one more,” said Ogier, explaining his tire choice.
Evans meanwhile had his best poker face on: “I don’t remember what they fitted at the service! Feels OK anyway.”
Although all three Toyotas took different tires, they filled out the top three positions on the stage and now overall – Rovanperä climbing from fifth to third.
“We took a bit of a different tire plan than some others,” he said, “let’s see how it works out on this loop.”
But Rovanperä’s third place is far from secure, as he has just 0.1s in hand over Neuville’s Hyundai and, incredibly, just another 0.1s over M-Sport’s Ott Tänak. Neuville had been 0.1s behind Tänak before SS3 but ended it 0.1s ahead.
“I was struggling a bit with the turn in and the movement of the car so I took it a bit more steady in the faster section as I didn’t want to get any surprise,” he said.
Tänak, who’s 23.4s down on the lead, added: “Clean run – all we can do at the moment. Can’t really get the performance but so far so good.”
The top five has continued its breakaway from the rest of the pack, as best of the rest Dani Sordo is some 21.5s down on Tänak after just three stages. However Loubet is looming large in Sordo’s mirrors.
Considering he’s only ever started one Monte Carlo Rally before, Loubet was deeply impressive on SS3 as he was just 0.2s slower than his team-mate Tänak to close to 3.6s adrift of Sordo.
Esapekka Lappi is eighth on his first rally for Hyundai, but still frustrated that he’s not going fast enough.
“I didn’t figure out throughout the night why I’m braking so much all the time, so we need to work on that,” he said.
Takamoto Katsuta backed off in sections of SS3 expecting more ice, but was still quicker than Lappi to close his overall deficit to 11.9s.
Katsuta lost bucket-loads of time on SS2 after losing his handbrake.
