Ogier keeps the head of Monte-Carlo, Fourmaux goes second!

In the aftermath of Sébastien Ogier's takeover on this Monte-Carlo 2025 rally, it was Grégoire Munster who opened the road on the first loop of a dreaded day, mainly disputed in Drôme. The Ford driver had signed a good start to the rally but encountered an electrical problem on the link on Friday evening, the forcing him to abandon to leave with a penalty this Saturday morning.

Paradoxically, this hard blow will have favored it on an ES9 alternating dry and very humid passages, and with a significant degradation profile. Author of a very good time, he held up to the end, despite a very offensive Sébastien Ogier but who finished eight little tenths of a Grégoire Munster everything to his joy to celebrate this very first scratch in WRC.

While Adrien Fourmaux and Elfyn Evans neutralized in this 27 km passage, Thierry Neuville experienced a complicated start to the day by losing 50 seconds because of an unexplained technical problem on his Hyundai.

“The car left, then I lost power, we thought that the turbo had dropped”said the defending world champion. “In our situation, we said to ourselves that we had to try to make a reset, and for all is well.”

The special between Acelon and Recoubeau-Jansac runs in stride was amputated from the first five kilometers, deemed too dangerous. The profile did not please everyone with a slower rhythm and very narrow roads. Although critical on arrival, Ott Tänak hit the bull's eye and resumed a lot of time to Kalle Rovanperä.

In the duel opposing the Elfyn Evans, Adrien Fourmaux took the advantage to go to the second place from a short head, while at the same time the leader Sébastien Ogier managed his risk taking and released a dozen of seconds. “The special is very dirty, so I was quite careful”he confirmed.

Last act of this loop which will be identical on Saturday afternoon, the ES12 between La Bâtie-des-Fonts and Aspremont reserved some a bad surprise with the arrival of a small rain in the last kilometers. All the pilots confirmed that they had to compose with a very slippery tarmac under these conditions.

Between Adrien Fourmaux and Elfyn Evans, the confrontation again turned to the advantage of the French, which took up 2 “3 additional to the Welsh and thus confirmed his second provisional place behind Sébastien Ogier. The leader found the outposts in this Last morning special, certainly won by Takamoto Katsuta, and now has 17 “2 in advance at the top of the rally.

Saturday morning scratchs
ES10	27,00 km	La Motte-Chalancon / Saint-Nazaire-le-Désert 1	G. Munster
ES11	15,48 km	Aucelon / Recoubeau-Jansac 1	O. Tänak
ES12	17,85 km	La Bâtie-des-Fonts / Aspremont 1	T. KATSUTA

Monte -Carlo rally – Ranking after ES12