The 2025 WRC season begins with the traditional Rallye Monte-Carlo, this Wednesday the Shakedown took place where Ott Tänak set the best benchmark for the various passages.
Contested on the Route de la Garde, a wet and slippery 3.28 kilometer track located a few minutes from the Gap service park, this Shakedown gave a foretaste of the perilous conditions that await the crews for this first round of the season.
Monte-Carlo begins with this Shakedown, Tänak shows up
Grip levels became increasingly unpredictable as mud was spread onto the road with each pass. However, when the official stages of the rally begin tomorrow evening at higher altitudes, snow and ice could pose the biggest challenges. Tänak, driving a Hyundai i20 N Rally1 fitted with the new Hankook tires supplied for 2025, set the benchmark on his first pass, ahead of Toyota’s Kalle Rovanperä by 0.7 seconds.
“Honestly, it was quite wet. The grip is really unpredictable, it’s quite tricky,” said the Estonian.
Eight-time world champion Sébastien Ogier, looking for an unprecedented 10th victory on these roads, finished just 0.1 seconds behind Rovanperä. The Frenchman recognized the difficulty of the conditions and confirmed Tänak’s words: “It’s typical of Monte Carlo, not a lot of snow here, but a lot of water. The roads get dirty quickly, so this weekend could be very complicated.”
-Elfyn Evans helped Toyota place three cars in the top four, just a tenth behind Ogier, while reigning world champion Thierry Neuville was fifth in his Hyundai. The Belgian, proudly displaying the number one on his car, adopted an optimistic tone for this new season.
“We’re happy to be back,” he said with a smile. “It’s an honor to have number one on the car, but that doesn’t mean it will be any easier this year. We must fight for this again. We have clear goals as a team for this year. Making the most of every opportunity and fighting for both titles would be fantastic.”
Takamoto Katsuta completed the top six, while new Hyundai recruit Adrien Fourmaux made an encouraging start in seventh, hoping at the WRC microphone that he will make the right tire choices throughout the weekend. Josh McErlean for M-Sport Ford, making his first laps in Rally1, progressed cautiously to finish just ahead of teammate Grégoire Munster in eighth. Finally, Sami Pajari completed the top 10.
© WRC
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