Toyota’s young star Oliver Solberg has, at least for now, left Ogier and Toyota’s Welshman Elfyn Evans with little answer. With only one proper special stage and Monaco’s short city stage remaining of Saturday’s leg, Solberg’s lead stands at over a minute ahead of his experienced colleagues.
Ogier attacked on the opening stage of the morning, clawing back 20 seconds, but Solberg immediately responded on the following sprint stage.
“I don’t know if you can say that I was pushing. I was just trying to drive cleanly. It has been really difficult and the grip is low. The conditions probably look great, but it’s a shame that we have to drive this slowly,” Ogier said.
“Okay start in the first one, but not so great in the second one. Conditions in the second one were more changing and I got a bit safe information from my crew. I was far too cautious in this one, but it remained tricky. At the end of the day we don’t want to make anything crazy either. So we’ll see. This afternoon will be again difficult with some melting conditions.”
Evans extended his advantage over Ogier in the fight for second place back to over ten seconds.
“It was really difficult in the morning. The first one was very icy and the grip was low throughout. Of course, it’s then quite even, even if there’s no grip. It’s hard to know how fast you’ve been driving because the speed feels so slow. On the second stage the grip was changing more. The slush had melted, but there were still a lot of slides. It felt like the car would never stop,” Evans sighed.
In addition to Saturday’s two stages, four more special stages will be run at the Monte Carlo Rally on Sunday.
