Monte Carlo Rally 2018
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Breen's time for this stage is 19m45.6s – some nine minutes faster than this morning! How conditions have changed.
Neuville, despite his moments, comes through a dozen or so seconds faster.
Neuville, despite his moments, comes through a dozen or so seconds faster.
Evans the benchmark through the first split at the moment, Latvala not quite as quick in the Toyota.
Quote
Breen's in. "That's enjoyable now like that. It's really tricky in some places, bit of fog in others. You can only see 30m or 40m in front of you. It was really good fun!"
Crash
THIS one deserves 'incident'. Neuville's off again, this time going straight on at a 90-degree left-hander and flying into a snow-covered field.
He's not the first one to go off there – and he spots some tracks heading back onto the route, so cracks on at full speed over the field...
Neuville cracked on for a bit then spotted a low point in the bank and leapt back onto the road. Odd. Very odd. Messy stage.
He's not the first one to go off there – and he spots some tracks heading back onto the route, so cracks on at full speed over the field...
Neuville cracked on for a bit then spotted a low point in the bank and leapt back onto the road. Odd. Very odd. Messy stage.
We won't give this an 'incident' tag, but the onboard cameras spot another bit of time lost for Neuville as he slight overshoots a tight right hander. Just runs wide, no physical harm done (this time).
Everyone down to Latvala is definitely on the stage now.
Crash
Neuville's had a spin and backed his Hyundai up a bank – but has carried on at speed, so suspect he has lost the rear and slapped the snow square on. So, time lost quite dramatically, but no serious damage...it seems.
We think the slight delay to the start of the stage has confused the live mapping data. Tricky to work out who is on the stage!
Sounds like Breen's 17s slower than Neuville at the first split. Plenty to go on this stage.
Got some pictures back. Breen's getting into a chunk of stage with some slush on the road. It's clear road in a lot of places but you just need one patch of slush or ice to catch you out...
Helpfully, every bit of data at our disposal isn't working properly right now. We're pretty sure Breen, Neuville, Bouffier, Meeke and Evans are all on the stage though...
Breen's start on the stage was delayed due to concerns over the positioning of some spectators.
Conditions look a lot better than this morning, almost a different stage.
Conditions look a lot better than this morning, almost a different stage.
Breen is onto the stage – we are back under way.
David Evans
After that quip to Tanak, Ogier continued to tell Autosport: “The conditions were horrible this morning. It was just about surviving, luckily we did this. The time was good, but really you have no idea what the time is going to be like. It’s super-tricky and it will be for the rest of the rally. The lead is more than a minute and this is good, but it’s so easy to lose a lot of time in one single stage.”
While Tanak pulled 15 back in SS10, he was still frustrated by shipping 1m03s to the leader in the morning’s opener. The Toyota man admitted he struggled with the suspension set-up on his Yaris WRC.
He told Autosport: “We planned to use the ‘snow’ damper for today, but something was wrong and it wasn’t working. It made the car really stiff and very difficult to drive, there was no grip – it was worse in the first where we had a lot of snow, but in the second stage there was a bit more wet asphalt coming so it wasn’t so bad.”
While Tanak pulled 15 back in SS10, he was still frustrated by shipping 1m03s to the leader in the morning’s opener. The Toyota man admitted he struggled with the suspension set-up on his Yaris WRC.
He told Autosport: “We planned to use the ‘snow’ damper for today, but something was wrong and it wasn’t working. It made the car really stiff and very difficult to drive, there was no grip – it was worse in the first where we had a lot of snow, but in the second stage there was a bit more wet asphalt coming so it wasn’t so bad.”
Having seen Tanak take 15 seconds off him in the second of the morning’s stages, Sebastien Ogier joked with the Estonian: “I’m going to check the onboard to make sure you took the roundabout!”
David Evans
Tyres for the afternoon: Ogier/Neuville/Mikkelsen/Meeke/Breen take four studless winters and two studded tyres (most likely with studs on the front for SS11). Evans and Bouffier have three and three while Toyota’s trio will run with no studs through the afternoon and only one spare.
The feeling among the leading drivers is the snow is melting and there’s not a lot more snow expected in the repeat of the morning’s two stages. Ambient temperature should remain high for the first stage, but with the second stage climbing to 1574 metres at the Col de Moissiere, it’s possible there will be plenty of ice around.
The feeling among the leading drivers is the snow is melting and there’s not a lot more snow expected in the repeat of the morning’s two stages. Ambient temperature should remain high for the first stage, but with the second stage climbing to 1574 metres at the Col de Moissiere, it’s possible there will be plenty of ice around.
Any chance of elevensies or an early lunch went out of the window for the co-drivers this morning. With the snow and ice melting, there were frantic calls from the service park to the centre of the Alps in an effort to get hold of ice-note crews to amend their notes.
Fortunately, Kris Meeke’s co-driver Paul Nagle at least found himself a comfortable chair to do the job in…
Hello, welcome back, did you miss us? We're about ready for some more Monte action. This morning's two stages packed a fair bit in. We're running them again shortly – what's going to crop up this time?
Autosport
Sorry for the silence. After this morning's pair of stages, we'll pick things up for the second run through those tests around 10.50am UK time. Here's the morning report in the meantime. See you soon: 
Information
With the WRC runners through, here's the sharp end of the classification:
Order after SS10:
1 Ogier 2h45m21.2s
2 Tanak +1m03.4s
3 Latvala +1m41.1s
4 Lappi +2m06.6s
5 Meeke +4m29.8s
Order after SS10:
1 Ogier 2h45m21.2s
2 Tanak +1m03.4s
3 Latvala +1m41.1s
4 Lappi +2m06.6s
5 Meeke +4m29.8s
Quote
Mikkelsen seems to be enjoying himself. "I don't have a result to drive for so it's important to finish the day and go for the powerstage [tomorrow]. I drove what I felt was right."
It was decent – 4.7s slower than Tanak so second on the stage.
It was decent – 4.7s slower than Tanak so second on the stage.
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Ogier says he was backing off "a little more", adding "in the slush it's never really fun". He says he's happy, but his demeanour suggests otherwise.
Ogier drops 15s to Tanak on this stage. Potential problem? Still, handsome advantage overall: 1m03.4s.
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Tanak quickest but he's not happy: "We have some serious issues with our dampers. They are solid stiff. We've opened everything but they are still stiffer than yesterday."
Service will be important for the Toyota driver.
Service will be important for the Toyota driver.
Stopwatch
Tanak comes through and makes it all three Toyotas to hit the top. He's 6.8s quicker than Lappi with a 12m16.8s and boosts his advantage over Latvala in the overall classification out to 37.7s.
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Here's the current stage pacesetter, Lappi: "It's good. The previous one was not on this planet, oh my God, it was really crazy. This one was a bit better, melting from the ice notes at least, getting better all the time."
Stopwatch
"Anything you can do, I can do better..."
Lappi smashes Toyota team-mate Latvala's benchmark by 10.3s. That hauls the gap between the two back down to 25.5s after Lappi's very cautious run through the first morning stage.
Lappi smashes Toyota team-mate Latvala's benchmark by 10.3s. That hauls the gap between the two back down to 25.5s after Lappi's very cautious run through the first morning stage.
Stopwatch
Latvala through 4.9s quicker than Evans. Shows just how much time the majority of the WRC runners have lost that he's 2m48.7s clear of next-best (at the moment) Meeke overall!
Another tricky run for Meeke. He's 14.6s slower than Evans.
Lappi looks rapid, based on the limited split times we have to assess. Bouffier is just 16.2s ahead of Evans in the overall classification after dropping 11.1s on this run.
Mikkelsen on the stage. That's all our frontrunners under way.
Stopwatch
Evans 6.5s quicker than Neuville at the stage end.
What makes these stages so tricky is the mix of snow, ice, slush and clear road. By the end, it's just wet road – and these cars look good as they get pushed closer to the maximum.
Neuville ends the stage 13.8s faster than Breen. Meeke's through the first split slightly slower than Evans and Bouffier.
Breen finishes the stage in 12m59.1s. We've got Evans and Bouffier through the the first split but who knows what the times are as it's a mess again.
Neuville quicker than Breen through the first split, to the tune of 3.6s.
Bouffier and Meeke onto the stage. We have a first split from Breen: 6m09.1s.
All credit to Breen. He might be having to adopt a tip-toe strategy but he is keeping it clean and several other drivers are not doing that.
Survival over speed. It's not pretty, but it's effective.
Survival over speed. It's not pretty, but it's effective.
In the meantime, Evans has started the stage and Bouffier is getting ready to join in the fun.
A roundabout is such an odd addition to a WRC stage, but we think it works...
...Neuville makes a mistake! He nails the 360 drift but not much later on the stage he runs a bit wide and suffers a quarter-spin. Is that a thing? We'll make it a thing.
Neuville had to get right off the throttle and almost stop just to stop the Hyundai wandering off down a side road.
...Neuville makes a mistake! He nails the 360 drift but not much later on the stage he runs a bit wide and suffers a quarter-spin. Is that a thing? We'll make it a thing.
Neuville had to get right off the throttle and almost stop just to stop the Hyundai wandering off down a side road.
By: Matt Beer
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