ES1 Classification Monte-Carlo Rally 2024

AdminJanuary 26, 2024

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Highlights

Starting in first place this evening, Elphin Evans began his season with a promising first scratch. On a completely dry stage, the Welshman leads Ott Tanak by just five seconds. The latter was hampered by problems with his Hyundai’s acceleration, as was Andreas Mikkelsen shortly after.

For Thierry Neuville, cautious with his tyres, and Sébastien Ogier, slowed from his fourth place on the road, this is a timid start to the event.

Starting from seventh place on the road, Adrien Fourmaux finished fifth, behind the “big guys” in the peloton, but further ahead of the others.

In WRC2, Spaniard Pepe López impressed in his Skoda Fabia ahead of No. 1 favorite Yohan Rosell by a margin of more than nine seconds. For the first time in GR Yaris Rally2, Sami Pajari is very close to the Citroen driver.

In RC3, Matteo Chatillon set a very good time and held off his rivals by more than a second per kilometer.

In RC4, another Matteo Italian shines with Fontana, also an opening writer with a big lead over his opponents.

In the FRGT, Raphael Astier, the early favourite, was forced to drop out due to a fire starting on his Alpine.

In RC5, there are already three men in the nine Clio Rally 5 that stand out from the rest of the peloton.

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Pilot reactions

E. Evans 12:12.9	“The grip is really high and I’m not sure I used it fully. It’s complicated to start with such a good grip from the beginning, but that’s okay, everything went well.
T. Newville 12:21.2	“I wasn’t that careful. But the tire moves a lot. I tried not to overheat them at first. I think I could have done a bit better, but it’s only the first stage and it’s a long rally. We’ll see how the tires are.”
O. Tanak 12:18.1	“This phase was beautiful and very relevant. Maybe I had some problem with acceleration. The car is very flexible, as if we had a snow setup. Halfway through the stage I started having problems with the accelerator.
S. Ogier 12:22.7	“There are already a lot of ropes and it’s not surprising for us to be a little behind. There is already a lot of dirt on the road.”
T. Katsuta 12:37.2	“It’s definitely getting dirtier and dirtier. There is still a long way to go in this rally and we will try to improve little by little as the kilometers go by.”
A. Mikkelsen 12:45.8	“It was not easy, we struggled with the engine mapping. Every time I started to slow down the car started to speed up. She was really annoying because of that. I have to change that.”
A. Fourmaux 12:29.1	“I really like riding at night, I say every time. I had a lot of fun in front of so many spectators. It was great. I was really clean, sometimes it was really dirty with a lot of dirt already and we had to slow down. I’m happy with my special.”
G. Munster 12:43.3	“A very bad stage from our side. We didn’t ride in the dry during the test and the setup was too soft. We will try to change things for the next special.
N.Gryazin	“The tires began to overheat and in some places it was not clearly visible. This is a great start and a great fight for Yohan to come up with. It’s interesting.”
Y. Rosell 13:04.5	“I had no idea of rhythm. It is a special phase that we are looking for and it is not easy to start.”
S. the priest 13:05.8	“Thank you Toyota for making this car. It is really fun to drive. There were many places where I could go faster with more grip than expected. It’s a good start.”
N.Ciamin 13:19.0	“Nothing special, we have a little flexible setting. Above all, we made a precise choice of tires to favor the next special stage.”
O. Solberg 13:12.5	“It was really critical that night, I had a lot of understeer.”
P. Lopez 12:55.3	“Not too bad with a new car and a new co-driver!”
S. Lefebvre 13:17.9	“We need a few kilometers to get our bearings. It’s really different from the Citroën I know by heart. It was a beautiful place with lots of dirt and stones.”
B. Bouffier 13:56.0	“It’s not easy. The road is already in bad shape. And I made a mistake at the pin. I had to go into reverse and I lost about 15 seconds.