Loeb leads WRC Monte Carlo Rallye 2022 after first full day of competition
Hi, friends!
Rally veteran and nine time World Rally Champion showed today why he won all that rallies and crowns despite a fact that he was our of the WRC car for more then a year. You just can't beat a talent. All these new guys with backings can't fight against two Sebs - Loeb and Ogier, despite they are doing just a limited program this year (and Loeb has only Monte so far for 2022).
M-Sport Ford was revelation of the day. Yeah, they invested so much time an effort into that Ford Puma Rally1 car and that effort now pays off which is the way the things should function in the world.
They entered four crews for the Monte and three of them finished the first full day of special stages - Seb Loeb, Craig Breen and Gus Greensmith, Adrien Fourmaux had a shunt but I will write about the horrible accident in the following days.
Greensmith finally won the special stage and he was driving consistently whole day, But these guys just can't fight against two guys who mastered the World Rally Championship for the 15 years together.
Hyundai World Rally Team was the team to criticize today. Their driver complained the whole day with Thierry Neuville and Ott Tanak at east had some speed while youngster Oliver Solberg was completely frustrated with some things which also Loeb had (some smoke in the car) but he didn't complain at all. I don't know why they signed that guy for a Rally1 drive this year after bad results last season. He should be in a WRC2 class at least for another year.
Elfyn Evans is doing a smart job for Toyota. He is very close to two Sebs and he knows that these guys don't drive the full season and he has a full year program so it is better to score as much points as he can from the weekend then to trash his car quickly. Rovanpera jr was very slow for the first part of a day but then started to drive better, the same as Takamot Katsuta who is regaining his confidence back after terrible 2nd part of 2021.
The rally is still long so we will have to enjoy two more days of competition.
If you want to watch a full coverage of the day, just click here:
https://www.redbull.com/int-en/live/fia-world-rally-championship-2022-monte-carlo-friday-highlights
Credit for photos and videos to WRC and Youtube.
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Grab a beer and enjoy!
Cheers!