Sebastien Ogier takes overnight WRC Rallye Monte Carlo after tricky SS6

Sebastien Ogier takes overnight WRC Rallye Monte Carlo after tricky SS6

25th January 2025 0 By Kamron Kent

Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier takes over the lead of the World Rally Championship’s Rallye Monte-Carlo as a few drivers suffer problems on a tricky sixth stage. 

Feature image credit: WRC Promoter GmbH / Red Bull Content Pool

Stage six proved difficult for a few drivers, especially Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville. His teammate Ott Tanak and Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier also had trouble on the stage. 

Neuville couldn’t slow the car down around 8km into the stage, heading into a hairpin, which saw him hit a grass bank before returning to the stage. However, his rear-left tyre hung onto its suspension for the remaining 10km. 

The defending world champions, Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe had another incident on the following loop, at the same corner on stage nine. The Belgian crew couldn’t slow down again at the hairpin and ran off the course before they limped the rest of the way with a puncture.

In SS6, Tanak ran wide on a fast-left hander and dropped the side of his car into a ditch before throttling his Hyundai back onto the tarmac. He lost the boot and rear wing of his car as a result of the contact with a local pole. 

Ogier was least affected by the tricky stage. The eight-time world champion ran wide at a left-hand corner and collided with a grass bank. However, the Toyota driver escaped the incident relatively unscathed.

Overall, Ogier went overnight as the rally leader as the eight-time world champion led a provisional 1-2 for Toyota with Elfyn Evans in second, only 12.6s off the pace. Hyundai’s newcomer, Adrien Fourmaux completed the provisional podium in third, 1.6s behind Evans. 

Toyota’s Kalle Rovanpera and Tanak rounded out the top five, in fourth and fifth, respectively. 

Takamoto Katsuta and Sami Pajari completed Toyota’s line-up down in sixth and seventh. Neuville completed the Rally1 runners down in eighth, three minutes and 58 seconds off the pace of Ogier. 

M-Sport Ford’s Joshua McErlean and Gregoire Munster completed the WRC category outside the top 10, despite the latter’s impressive form early on in the day. McErlean was the leading driver for the team in 11th whilst a late puncture, on stage eight, for Munster dropped him down to 19th overall by the end of the day. 

Yohan Rossell, in his Citroen C3 Rally2 contender, led the WRC2 category ninth overall in the rally event. The French driver finished ahead of fellow competitor Nikolay Gryazin, in 10th.

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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.

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About the author

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.

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