Sébastien Ogier’s domination of the Monte Carlo Rally has continued, despite his Toyota operating without hybrid power on Friday’s second stage.
Ogier led Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans by 9.2 seconds after three stages, but for the first time this World Rally Championship season looked like he might be edged in the early splits.
But Ogier responded in the second half of the stage to add another 2.1s to his lead and extend it into double figures.
However, all wasn’t as well as it seemed.
“We have an issue so we are pushing flat out to compensate for it,” he explained.
What was the issue?
“No hybrid.”
And with no mid-day service on Friday, just a tire fitting zone instead, that problem could hamper Ogier for the remainder of the day.
Evans, unaware of Ogier’s loss of propulsion, was complimentary of his team-mate.
“He’s going well at the minute. Everything’s working OK for us, trying not to do anything too crazy but let’s see, long way to go still.”
While the battle for the lead looks fairly stagnant for now, the fight for the final podium position is well and truly alive.
Heading onto the stage, World Rally Championship title contenders Kalle Rovanperä, Thierry Neuville and Ott Tänak were all covered by just 0.2s in third, fourth and fifth places respectively.
But the gaps have extended after SS4 – and positions switched – as Neuville jumped up to third and Rovanperä slipped back to fifth, allowing Tänak to rise to fourth.
On the stage Neuville was 2.9s quicker than Tänak who in turn beat Rovanperä by 2.2s. Overall Neuville heads Tänak by three seconds with Rovanperä another two adrift.
Dani Sordo felt he simply wasn’t fast enough on SS4 but he did manage to rebuff Pierre-Louis Loubet’s attempt to steal sixth place from him.
Outpacing the M-Sport Ford by 0.7s, Sordo is 4.3s ahead overall.
“We had a puncture on the dash so I lift a lot in the end, but I think the rhythm was OK,” Loubet said, explaining the time loss.
Takamoto Katsuta’s windshield fogged up in places on SS4 but he’s closed up massively on Esapekka Lappi in the battle for eighth.
Hyundai driver Lappi now only has 1.8s in hand over Toyota’s Katsuta after setting the slowest Rally1 time of the manufacturer drivers. Katsuta meanwhile was an impressive fourth quickest.
