Oliver Solberg extends his lead on the second day
Monte Carlo – The second day of competition at the Monte Carlo Rally was once again characterized by extremely difficult track conditions. Snow, mud, slippery ice and damp asphalt demanded maximum precision and concentration from the drivers. Toyota driver Oliver Solberg remained at the head of the field, defending and extending his lead despite setbacks.
Solberg went into the first full day of competition with a 44.2-second lead over his team-mate Elfyn Evans. On the fourth special stage, the Swede was able to increase this gap to over a minute. However, a puncture on the left front tire on the following stage cost him a large part of the lead he had previously built up. Undeterred, Solberg continued his drive and won the final special stages of the morning. With his third stage win of the weekend, he once again extended his lead to over a minute.
Solberg continued to control the action at the front in the afternoon. Meanwhile, his rivals Evans and Sébastien Ogier concentrated on the internal battle for second place. Ogier set a clear fastest time on the eighth special stage, halving the gap to Evans. Although Solberg lost 17.6 seconds to Ogier on this stage, he only lost 1.4 seconds to Evans and thus defended his lead of 1:05.6 minutes. Solberg was critical afterwards of what he saw as less favorable light conditions during his drive.
On the ninth and final stage of the day, Solberg deliberately took no more risks and managed his lead. At the end of the second stage of the day, his lead was 1:08.4 minutes. “I just wanted to get this stage over with, so much has happened today,” explained Solberg. “It was a clean drive overall, I got through and extended my lead. It was a fantastic day.”
Ogier set his second fastest time in a row on the ninth special stage and reduced the gap to Evans by a further 12.1 seconds. As a result, the nine-time world champion is now only 6.5 seconds behind the Welshman overnight, after the gap had been 35.7 seconds in the afternoon. Evans was self-critical and admitted that he had not ridden boldly enough.
Behind the Toyota trio, several Hyundai drivers were struggling with problems. The best Hyundai is currently over five minutes behind the leader. Thierry Neuville lost around three minutes on the final stage of the day after getting stuck in a bend and dropped back to fifth place. Meanwhile, Adrien Fourmaux struggled with electrical problems on his vehicle, which caused the handbrake to fail, among other things. He also received a 30-second penalty for starting the eighth special stage late. Fourmaux is now 3:50.3 minutes behind Ogier, but 1:00.1 minutes ahead of Neuville.
Jon Armstrong finished sixth overall in his Rally1 and Monte Carlo debut in the Ford, but lost around three minutes in the afternoon due to a tire change. Hayden Paddon, who has returned to the World Rally Championship after an eight-year break, is 23.3 seconds behind Armstrong in the Hyundai.
Takamoto Katsuta lost around six minutes in the afternoon due to a power steering failure and dropped back in the overall standings. His co-driver assisted him during the stage by manually operating the handbrake. Katsuta is now in eleventh and twelfth place behind Grégoire Munster.
Josh McErlean and Sami Pajari resumed the competition after their retirements on Thursday evening. While Pajari reached the day’s finish, McErlean retired again on the ninth special stage. In the WRC2 category, Leo Rossel leads with his Citroën by 39.6 seconds ahead of Eric Camilli. Nikolay Gryazin, making his debut in the Lancia Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale, is in third place, just 1.7 seconds behind Camilli.