Oliver Solberg takes the lead at turbulent Rally Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo – After an eventful start characterized by difficult conditions, Toyota driver Oliver Solberg has taken the lead at the Rally Monte Carlo. The Swede is in the lead after the first three special stages of the 94th edition of the rally classic.
The start to the new season of the World Rally Championship was exceptionally dramatic. The first special stage was won by runner-up Elfyn Evans (Toyota), who prevailed over his team-mate by 5.6 seconds on a wet surface.
During the subsequent transition from Monaco towards Gap, the teams encountered snow and ice in the French Maritime Alps. The second special stage proved to be particularly challenging under these conditions. Oliver Solberg was extremely aggressive and built up a clear lead. He gained more than 30 seconds on his pursuers, including 18 seconds on the last kilometer of the stage alone.
Solberg went into the third special stage with a lead of 25.5 seconds. Although the road conditions had improved somewhat compared to the previous stage, thick fog caused considerable visibility problems towards the end of the stage. The stage was stopped prematurely with the red flag after seven Rally1 cars had started. The times of Jon Armstrong and Hayden Paddon are therefore provisional and have yet to be confirmed.
Reigning world champion Sébastien Ogier set the fastest time on the final stage of the day. Several drivers criticized the poor visibility, with Evans and Thierry Neuville even calling for the special stage to be aborted.
Solberg leads the provisional overall standings by 44.2 seconds ahead of Evans. The other positions have not yet been finalized due to the aborted stage. Before the third stage, Jon Armstrong was in third place overall. The Irish M-Sport Ford driver showed a strong performance on his first Rally1 stage and expressed his satisfaction afterwards, but emphasized the challenge of finding the right balance between speed and risk.
Sébastien Ogier started the first day cautiously and was in third place after the first stage. However, he lost over a minute on the second special stage and later described it as one of the most unpleasant stages of his career. Ogier is currently 1:08.6 minutes behind Solberg, but 17.3 seconds ahead of Thierry Neuville. The Hyundai driver was able to pass his team-mate Adrien Fourmaux on the third stage after the latter had briefly got stuck in a ditch.
Afterwards, Fourmaux explained that dense fog and smoke from the spectators’ fireworks had massively restricted his view, which ultimately led to his slip-up.
Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota) followed 39.2 seconds behind Fourmaux after losing time in the fog. Ford driver Grégoire Munster lost more than two minutes due to a power steering failure. Hayden Paddon was relieved to have survived the opening evening of his comeback in the World Rally Championship without any major problems.
Sami Pajari (Toyota) and Josh McErlean (Ford) did not finish on Thursday. Both retired after incidents on the same icy bend in the second special stage.
In the WRC2 class, Eric Camilli leads the field in a Škoda. Both Lancia drivers were set back by incidents: Yohan Rossel damaged a wheel in the opening stage, while Nikolay Gryazin damaged a suspension.