Oliver Solberg and Elliot Edmondson, making their debut as full-time factory Toyota Gazoo Racing members, made a sensational start to the opening round of the WRC season, Rallye Monte Carlo.
At the end of the first full day, the young Swede led Elfyn Evans by 1’08.4 and the nine-time WRC champion Sebastien Ogier/Vincent Landais, no less, by 1’14.9!
Three stages on Thursday night saw Evans and Scott Martin take the first stage win of the season, but in the snow and darkness of stage two, Solberg beat the crème de la crème of WRC by a massive 31.1 seconds, and with it, snatched the rally lead.
“My god, that is the craziest I have done in my life,” Solberg admitted. “In the beginning my driving was really bad, but then on the snow I thought I’d just go for it.”
The final stage was red-flagged as heavy fog made visibility impossible.
Solberg extended his lead on Friday’s first stage before Evans struck back with the fastest time on stage five but fastest times on stages six and seven saw Solberg extend his lead over the Welshman.
“There’s a loooooong way to go,” Solberg said. “It will be a really hard afternoon.”
Ogier took the scratch time on the two last stages of the day, to close to within 6.5 seconds of Evans in second position.
Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team had two cars inside the top five, with Thierry Neuville climbing to fourth overall after a clean but cautious run through the loop. Adrien Fourmaux followed in fifth, still searching for confidence as conditions continued to evolve.
“It was very snowy at the beginning with a lot of slush,” Fourmaux said. “On the fast part I was a bit too careful.”
One of the standout performers of the morning remained Jon Armstrong, who brought his M-Sport Ford home sixth overall after another measured run on his Rally1 debut, despite tricky conditions and tyre compromises.
By the end of play on Friday, Fourmaux climbed into fourth, demoting Neuville to fifth, with Jon Armstrong putting in an eye-opening performance to hold sixth on his Rally1 debut.
Hayden Paddon and John Kennard ended seventh, ahead of Leo Rossel in his Citroen C3 Rally2. Eric Camilli and Nikolay Gryazin rounded out the top ten in the Skoda and Lancia respectively.
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