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The 2025 FIA World Rally Championship will get underway this week with the iconic Rallye Monte Carlo.
When one sits back and considers the build-up to the 2022 Monte Carlo Rally and the first step into the new generation of Hybrid Rally cars, deep down we all kinda knew that the Puma offering from M-Sport Ford was always going to be a good package, didn’t we?
At the end of the third day of the competition, Sébastien Ogier was heading into the final day of the event with a 21.1 second lead over Loeb and was on the brink of his 9th Monte Victory.
The third day of the Rallye of Monte Carlo resumed on Saturday morning in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and featured 5 stages covering 92km; the second full day of action would once again go without a mid-day service opportunity. With the shortened Sisteron Stage (Saint-Geniez – Thoard) billed as the one to watch, this stage delivered ample drama on its first run alone.
Overnight rally leader Sébastien Ogier led the field north of Monaco to the area around the Mercantour National Park in the Alps for a further 6 stages totalling at just under 98km. The stages featured on the second leg of the rally were typical Southern France tests: Roure – Beuil (SS3/6) at 18km, Guillaumes – Péone – Valberg (SS4/7) at 13km and Val-de-Chalvagne – Entrevaux (SS5/8) at 17km.
The 90th edition of the legendary Rallye Monte Carlo got underway in the darkness of the mountains to the north on Monaco with the first of two night stages. SS1 Lucéram – Lantosque at 15km in length took the honours for opening up the 2022 FIA World Rally Championship season, in this all-new Hybrid technological era.
To the North of Monaco, on a short 2.29km stretch of road between the villages of Sainte Agnes and Peille; the new generation of Hybrid Rally1 World Rally cars finally got to compare one another’s performance for the first time at the Rallye Monte Carlo Pre Event Shakedown.
After an overnight haul down south to Monte Carlo, 50 of the 84 Competitors remained to start the final day of the 89th Monte Carlo Rally, the opening round of the FIA World Rally Championships 2021.
With just 54km over four stages to contend, it was a Toyota 1-2-3 led by 7 times World Champ Sébastien Ogier alongside Julien Ingrassia in the Co-Drivers seat heading into this final loop of action.
It was another early start for the crews who now faced the typical Monte like conditions that we were expecting. The first test of the day was an 18km stage SS9 La Bréole – Selonnet 1, where parts of the stage would feel familiar from previous years. From the start, it climbed up to its highest point at about 5km in with a decent amount of snow and ice throughout; but it was at the end of the stage which was particularly bad; so it was a full set of studded winter tyres all around. The road order had now been reversed for today so perhaps offered up a bit of shake-up for the road conditions.
The second day of the Monte Carlo Rally started in the darkness early Friday morning with a 19km stage: SS3 – Asperemont – Le Batie-des-Fonts. A stage which was last used in 2019, it climbs to the top of a Col where at around 12-14km into the stage a 4km surprise in the form of patches of shiny ice awaited the crews; before an interesting decent tiptoeing back down towards the finish.