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WRC – Monte Carlo Rally ????????
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14 rounds on the program
The calendar will take competitors to new locations, not forgetting historic returns to some well-known terrains.
• Saudi Arabia makes its first appearance by hosting the final rally of the season.
• The Canary Islands Rally joins the calendar for the first time.
• Paraguay joins the calendar for a double meeting in South America as the Chile Bio Bío Rally will take place two weeks later.
• Estonia returns to the WRC
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A new scale
The new system simplifies the points awarded to each rally, rewarding the top ten according to the following scale: 25-17-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1. Following requests from all drivers, there will no longer be points awarded on Saturday evening, like last season.
Competitors experiencing difficulties at the start of the event will still have the opportunity to make up for it on Sunday, where the top five crews can earn additional points (5-4-3-2-1) for their efforts.
The iconic Wolf Power Stage remains unchanged, providing a thrilling finale for crews to score up to five bonus points (5-4-3-2-1) in the final stage of each rally.
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The market
• Adrien Fourmaux passe de M-Sport Ford World Rally Team à Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team.
• Sami Pajari gets a full-time drive at Toyota Gazoo Racing after his WRC2 title last year. His co-driver will be Marko Salminen in 2025.
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Jour 1 (23/01)
The world champion, Thierry Neuville (Hyundai), arrived in the lead at the Gap service park on Thursday evening, at the end of a first evening of the 93rd MonteCarlo Rally marked by the domination of the Toyotas: 2 stage scratches for Sébastien Ogier , and the third for Elfyn Evans.
This third and final special on Thursday, between Avançon and Notre-Dame-du-Laus (SS3, 13.97 km), was marked by a superb performance from Elfyn Evans (Toyota), the vice-world champion.
-“I wasn’t confident in the first two, but it was much better in the third”confided the Welshman at the stop point. And for good reason, he had just done better than Neuville, by 5.4 seconds, and than Rovanperä, by 10.7 seconds, on a relatively short special, bumpy, and very dirty in places.
“I didn’t think it would be this slippery. I got trapped but I got through it well,” conceded Ogier, author of his first small error of the rally. A big cross mid-stage, which almost sent him down an embankment, but his experience spoke.
The Gapençais stopped his Yaris just in time and was able to get back in the direction of travel to finish this SS3 23.5 seconds behind Evans. All his efforts in the first two specials were reduced to nothing, but that’s the law of Monte-Carlo.
The slightest mistake costs money, especially in the evening, when the road conditions are very difficult to guess.
The provisional classification
???? Thierry Neuville ???????? / Martijn Wydaeghe ???????? – Hyundai i20 N Rally1 – 00:32:58.8 (+00:00:00)
???? Elfyn Evans ???????? / Scott Martin ???????? – Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 – 00:33:00.8 (+00:00:02)
???? Sébastien Ogier ???????? / Vincent Landais ???????? – Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 – 00:33:11.6 (+00:00:12.8)
4️⃣ Ott Tänak ???????? / Martin Järveoja ???????? – Hyundai i20 N Rally1 – 00:33:25.8 (+00:00:27)
5️⃣ Adrien Fourmaux ???????? / Alexandre Coria ???????? – Hyundai i20 N Rally1 – 00:33:28.8 (+00:00:30)
6️⃣ Kalle Rovanperä ???????? / Jonne Halttunen ???????? – Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 – 00:33:42.7 (+00:00:43.9)
7️⃣ Grégoire Munster ???????? / Louis Louka ???????? – Ford Puma Rally1 – 00:33:47.6 (+00:00:48.8)
8️⃣ Takamoto Katsuta ???????? / Aaron Johnston ???????? – Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 – 00:33:52.1 (+00:00:53.3)
TO BE FOLLOWED
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