Won eight out of the sixteen special stages — exactly half the distance, the struggle for leadership from the first stage, the output of the first SU after the eighth and victory in the Power stage is not the ideal start to the season in the performance of Sébastien Ogier?
However, at some point in time it seemed that this time the Frenchman fails for the third time in a row to start the path to another world title fight with victory on his way almost got Kris Meeke from team Abu Dhabi Racing Total.
The Irishman is spending this season as a pilot palotabozsok team — his Citroen DS3 WRC, de jure, prepared for racing by the «private» team PH-Sport. However, de facto — at least judging by the sheer speed of Chris and his teammate Stephen Lefebvre — they played at most of these factory machines.
Mick was in an unusual role — he's not just was able to impose struggle invincible Ogier, but again and again came out the winner in local duels. On the first day, which consisted of two special stages, Sebastien and Chris exchanged victories, and eventually the leader at the end of Thursday was Mick. Ogier, who finished second at seven seconds behind. And came in third place, Andreas Mikkelsen lost leader for twenty seconds — and this after two stages!
No less interesting is the situation in the opening race behind the three leaders. After Mikkelsen finished the first day Thierry Neuville and Hayden Paddon — they piloted new and old Hyundai i20 WRC respectively — next: returned to M-Sport's Mads Ostberg, not too fast started the race Jari-Matti Latvala, Robert Kubica, stéphane Lefebvre and Dani Sordo. This hodgepodge promised an interesting fight, but as often happened in years past, the race gradually became the usual banal direction — and the situation «came stable» day by day.
The second day of the Rally Monte Carlo Ogier completed a leader — now he was ahead of Mika for ten seconds. All other competitors lost both of them(!) more than a minute, and starting from the sixth position even more than two.
In the group of leaders, in addition to Seb and Chris were still two pilots Volkswagen Jari-Matti Latvala and Andreas Mikkelsen. All as always...
As always «rained» rivals, crashed into a tree and rolled off Robert Kubica, Ott Tanak rolled over, took off Lorenzo Bertelli, were not included in the settings of Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo, could not find the speed Mads Ostberg — and this is only the second day of the race. And only the trio of Volkswagen Yes Kris Meeke extra for the extra stamped results in the top 5. But the third day made confusion in this group.
The morning was tough from the point of view rubber — section consisted of only two stages, however, the nature of the coating on them was completely different. Some (like Ogier and Mick) made a bet on the first extra day, someone on the second. In the same prize in the end turned out to be the leader of the rally — he once increased the lead from Chris up to half a minute, and occupied the third place lately until almost two.
And at the next SU scandal. Jari-Matti made a mistake in one of the many twists and turns, it took outside, the car slid off the road and fell into a ditch. There hitting something with the front left-hand wheel of the Volkswagen Polo R WRC sharply turned left and rolled to the side, where there were spectators. In puffs of steam escaped from under the hood, Finn allegedly had not noticed him standing in front of the fan, knocked him down and rolled on the hood. Then the audience fell to the ground, while Latvala drove on the track and drove on.
After the completion of stage Finnish racer rushed to repair the damaged suspension, but has already received information about the incident, the team contacted him and Finn made a vanishing. But the situation is not over. In the evening, the judges had summoned the driver and team representatives, to inquire into the accident. In the end Jari-Matti was found guilty in an accident, for which he received a fine of 5 thousand euros and a conditional disqualification on one stage in case of recurrence of such situation. As he tried Latvala, but to convince the judges that he did not see a man, he couldn't.
The similarity between Finn and SS 11 and 12 was only the first of the two main gatherings of the day — the second loser was Kris Meeke. His Citroen struck some object lying on the track, resulting in a damaged underbody protection and gear — and it has failed...
Thus ended the penultimate day of the utterly banal — Ogier continues to lead, and the second place two minutes behind the Frenchman out of his team-mate Andreas Mikkelsen. Has closed three of Thierry Neuville. Mads Ostberg and Stefan Lefebvre came in fourth and fifth place. In this order they finished the race — on the final day of Rallye Monte-Carlo crews of the top five maintained their positions.
And only Dani Sordo picked up the curtain of the race, the key to his new car, was able to push the defense Ott Tanaka and beat the Estonian in the fight for sixth place.
The remaining three positions in the top ten ranked winners of 2 WRC — Elfyn Evans, Esapekka Lappi and Armin Kremer.
The next stage of the world rally championship — Rally Sweden kicks off on February 12.
