Sébastien Loeb has been placed as the new leader of the Monte Carlo Rally after achieving the scratch in the three sections of the morning loop on Friday. The M-Sport driver has not only managed to overtake Sébastien Ogier with a Ford Puma Rally1 that transmits very good sensations, but also He has achieved a cushion of more than ten seconds compared to the Toyota drivers, as Elfyn Evans has also overtaken Ogier in the standings. The good work of Loeb and the performance of the Ford Puma they have not been overshadowed by Adrien Fourmaux’s heavy crash in SS3. Pilot and co-pilot are fine.
The night of Turini has given way to a brilliant day, in every way. With perfect weather conditions, without a trace of snow or ice on the stages, the duel between Sébastien Ogier and Sébastien Loeb has lived another chapter. In this case, Loeb’s talent has been imposed by the hand of a Ford Puma Rally1 that has undoubtedly been well ‘calmed’. It played into the nine-time world champion’s favor when it came to tire mounting, as he opted to use five soft tyres, while Ogier started the three stages of Friday morning with six tires, four soft and two supersoft.
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Sébastien Loeb and his co-driver Isabelle Galmiche went all out. Scratch on SS3, scratch on SS4 and scratch on SS5. Triplet to close the first assault on Friday with an almost unblemished performance. While the rivals who opened the stages found themselves with some patches of humidity and a colder asphalt, something that led Sébastien Ogier and Elfyn Evans to dangerously brush both guardrails, the M-Sport pilot was all face to face. Loeb’s driving was still capable of bringing smiles to the team despite the accident of Adrien Fourmaux.
In fact, the day began with a serious setback for M-Sport. In full dispute of SS3, Adrien Fourmaux and Alexandre Coria suffered a spectacular and strong accident after hitting the inner mountain of a curve and catapulted out to fall down a ravine, several turns of the bell through. Fortunately, Fourmaux and his co-driver were unharmed, although their Ford Puma Rally1 was destroyed. Also with problems, although far from those suffered by his teammate, Gus Greensmith lost ground with problems in the hybrid system of his ‘Rally1’.
With Fourmaux out of the game and Greensmith in trouble, the doors of the first ‘top 5’ of the year in the WRC have opened for Thierry Neuville and Craig Breen. Although the Belgian has more than 40 seconds lost with the leader, the sensations of the Hyundai pilots have been more positive than on the night of Turini, even if Oliver Solberg had to deal with some kind of problem in his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 that caused the presence of smoke in the cabin throughout the loop. Ott Tänak is now sixth after beating Gus Greensmith in SS5.
Andreas Mikkelsen took the lead in the WRC2 category on SS5 after taking advantage of Eric Camilli’s accident in which he has damaged the suspension of his Citroën C3 Rally2. As a result of this mishap, Mikkelsen is now the leader with an advantage of 3.9 seconds over Stéphane Lefebvre. Also Frenchman Yohan Rossel is third. Czech Jan Cerny remains the leader in WRC3 with an income that already reaches 30 seconds over Sami Pajari. By last, Raphaël Astier has taken the lead among the RGTs with the Alpine A110 Rally.
Classification after SS5 of the 90th Monte Carlo Rally
The Monte Carlo Rally continues this Friday (2:16 p.m.) with the dispute of the last three sections of the second stage of the event. Pilots and co-pilots will dispute 48.93 kilometers against the clock.