Rallye Monte-Carlo 2024: Evans retains lead but Ogier is on the hunt
27th January 2024Elfyn Evans of Toyota Gazoo Racing has maintained his Rallye Monte-Carlo lead but his teammate Sebastien Ogier is on the hunt for victory.
On the second day of action, trouble hit some drivers during the opening stage, SS3 – St-Léger-les-Mélèlzes – La Bâtie-Neuve. Ice compounded a small section of the stage and some drivers found themselves in a snow-covered ditch.
Such drivers were Hyundai’s Ott Tänak, Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta, M-Sport Fords Grégoire Munster and WRC2 competitors Christopher Ingram and Bryan Bouffier.
Thankfully, the local spectators were on hand to push the competitors back onto the stage. Tanak lost around 46 seconds whilst Katsuta lost five minutes.
However, Evans remained on top of the timing boards as the overall rally leader. Despite this, his teammate and eight-time world champion, Ogier found his footing once more in the Monte-Carlo rally.
The former world champion, who had secured nine previous wins in the rally, cut down the deficit to Evans after securing three stage wins. Ogier stood only 4.5 seconds behind his leading teammate as the day came to an end.
Although Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville suffered a spin in the morning and with three stage wins to his name, the Belgian remained in the final podium spot. 16.1 seconds separated Neuville from Evans and 11.6 seconds behind Ogier.
Tanak and M-Sport Ford’s Adrien Fourmaux occupied fourth and fifth respectively, and remained well in contention for a podium place.
Outside the top five sat Andreas Mikkelsen (Hyundai) and Munster, in sixth and seventh. With the five-minute time loss, Katsuta found himself down in 12th.
Nikolay Gryazin took the rally lead in the WRC2 category over Friday’s action and found himself 1.3 seconds ahead of Pepe Lopez. Both drivers found themselves eighth and ninth in the overall leaderboard.
Yohan Rossel completed the overall top 10, in 10th, 4.9 seconds behind Lopez.
That’s all for the article; Rallye Monte-Carlo 2024: Evans retains lead but Ogier is on the hunt!
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- Rovanpera takes part-time schedule for WRC 2024
- Central European Rally: Neuville leads inaugural opening day ahead of Tanak
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Hi, I’m Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion.
I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I’ve loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.
Kamron Kent
Hi, I'm Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion. I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I've loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.
