On Saturday morning, Ogier faced a challenging situation due to his road position as the last Rally1 car on the stage. By the time he started, the cars ahead had already dragged a lot of dirt and loose gravel onto the road, but the veteran didn’t let it deter him.
Ogier delivered convincing performances throughout the morning, firmly holding onto his lead. By midday, he maintained a 17.2-second advantage over Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux.
“A good start. I was happy with how things went this morning. I knew that the longest stage of the rally was coming up, and we had to push, to be honest. If you back off even a little on a stage like that, you can easily lose too much time,” Ogier said.
“The first stage was good. The second one was a bit less so. I was a little too cautious on the downhill—there was a very dirty section that I hadn’t expected to be so slippery, and I lost a couple of seconds there. But the last stage was good. The gap isn’t huge, but the morning still went in a positive direction,” he added.
However, in Monte-Carlo, the concept of a “comfortable lead” simply doesn’t exist.
“No, it’s not comfortable at all,” Ogier admitted.
“I think maybe if the lead approaches 30 seconds, then you can start thinking you have a bit of a cushion. But anything less than that, and with these conditions, a lot can still happen,” Ogier pointed out.
Ogier’s teammate Elfyn Evans slipped to third during the morning loop, now 20 seconds behind the leader. Hyundai appeared to have a pace edge over Toyota in the morning stages.
“That does seem to be the case. It wasn’t a bad morning, but definitely not the best either. It feels like we’re missing a bit of confidence on the dirt in some places,” Evans remarked.
As for the afternoon stages, Evans had yet to form a clear plan.
“Let’s see what we can do,” the Welshman said.
The Rally Monte-Carlo continues with three more stages on Saturday. The event concludes on Sunday.
