If you thought last year's FIA World
Rally Championship was uncertain and exciting, fast forward to 2018, and what
do we have? Even more uncertainty and much more excitement. That is, if the
opening round in Monte Carlo is anything to go by.
Friday was wet, slushy and snow-free, Saturday was the complete
opposite (in places!) and on Sunday the forecasters just gave up while the
weather gods chucked everything at the south eastern corner of France. And if
it was bad for the rally cars, spare a thought for the gravel note crews
running two hours ahead of the front runners.
What a huge responsibility to make the right call and report back to
the teams? And who gets the blame if things go wrong? Through no fault of their
own. The weather itself can change quicke4r than Superman in a phone box. Not
only that, conditions can be polar opposites on one side of the mountain or valley
to the other. Tyre choice? Lottery more like.
And what of the fans? Nutters, the lot of them. That's one thing that
rally fans have in common around the globe. Sheer noisy delight when they see
the cars, and mayhem when they see a trier. Trouble is, watching the antics of some
of them on the TV coverage would have made sensible folk flinch in horror at
their proximity to speeding cars which were on the limits of adhesion - and
quite often beyond. Every driver spun at some point, and not just once, even
Sebastien Ogier. Scary stuff.
Even so, defending FIA World Rally Champion Ogier made the perfect
start to his bid to clinch a sixth drivers’ crown by scoring his fifth Rallye
Monte-Carlo in a row on home soil.
The M-Sport driver began the final day 33.5 seconds ahead of the pursuing Ott
Tänak first time out in the Toyota, and was immediately 11.5sec faster than the
Yaris pilot on the first stage of the day. And there he stayed all the way to
the finish.
“Rallye Monte-Carlo is a special event for me,” said Ogier, “I’ve
always done well here – I seem to have a really good connection with my home
rally – and I’m super happy to take another win. I've never struggled so much
with tyre choice. It was all about trying to minimise mistakes, and I managed
to make fewer than the others."
Having stopped to change
a punctured tyre on the first day, team mate Elfyn Evans had his troubles too
but scored sixth place: “It’s been a tough edition of
the rally this year and we had an especially tough start losing so much time on
the very first stage. Over the next few days I think we were there or there
abouts in terms of outright speed, but overall there were just too many little
errors. When it came to making the smart choices at the right time, we weren’t
quite there and that’s what cost us a really good result today. The comforting
thing is that the speed is there, but we still need to be better.”
The Power Stage was dominated by Kris Meeke, who salvaged some consolation for
Citroën at the end of a troubled weekend with fourth overall while team mate
Craig Breen lost out badly on the first day with brake trouble.
At the finish, said Kris said: "It was the hardest Monte-Carlo
that I have ever experienced. We had everything: sheer ice on slick tyres on
Thursday evening, rain on Friday, snow on Saturday and frost on the Col de
Turini today. I'm surprised to finish the rally with seventeen points, but I'll
certainly take them! We now have to stay humble and keep working hard to try
and improve."
Craig Breen added: "The weekend got off to a difficult start,
with our mistake on Thursday evening. And then things went from bad to worse
with the brake problems on Friday, which left us opening the road as something
of a snow plough on Saturday."
Final
Overall Classification - Rallye Monte-Carlo
1, S. Ogier/J. Ingrassia, Ford Fiesta WRC, 4:18:55.5
2, O. Tänak/M. Järveoja, Toyota
Yaris WRC, +58.3
3, J. M. Latvala/M. Anttila, Toyota
Yaris WRC, +1:52.0
4, K. Meeke/P. Nagle, Citroën C3
WRC, +4:43.1
5, T.
Neuville/N. Gilsoul, Hyundai i20
Coupe WRC, +4:53.8
6, E. Evans/D. Barritt, Ford
Fiesta WRC, +4:54.8
7, E. Lappi/J. Ferm, Toyota Yaris
WRC, +4:57.5
8, B. Bouffier/X. Panseri, Ford
Fiesta WRC, +7:39.5
9, C. Breen/S. Martin, Citroën C3
WRC, +9:06.7
10, J Kopecky/Pavel Dresler, Skoda Fabia R5, +16:43.0
2018 FIA World Rally Championship for
Drivers’ Standings
After Round 1
1, S. Ogier, 26
2, O. Tanak, 18
3, J.M Latvala, 17
4, K. Meeke, 17
5, T.
Neuville, 14
6, E. Evans, 8
7, E. Lappi, 6
8, B. Bouffier, 4
9, A.
Mikkelsen, 3
10, C. Breen, 2