Ogier resists Neuville as Evans drops out

Top 15 classification at Rallye Monte-Carlo after SS10

Sebastien Ogier has retained his lead over Thierry Neuville on Saturday’s morning loop at Rallye Monte-Carlo which saw Elfyn Evans crash out for M-Sport Ford.

The Citroen driver has edged out his advantage to 5.3s having held a narrow two-second lead overnight on Neuville, while Toyota’s Ott Tanak claimed both stage wins this morning in his bid to recover from a costly puncture on SS7.

Further down the order it was a disastrous couple of stages for Evans who suffered a puncture on SS9 before crashing while aiming to make up time on SS10 for M-Sport Ford which leaves him out of the opening round.

Hyundai’s Andreas Mikkelsen suffered a similar fate when he dramatically lost his left-rear wheel at the flying finish to SS9 with the damage denying him a chance to start SS10.

Mikkelsen’s exit, who had been running in third place overnight, sees Jari-Matti Latvala move up to the final podium spot for Toyota Gazoo Racing with a slender 4.7s lead on Sebastien Loeb on his Hyundai debut.

With Tanak moving up to fifth place, the rest of the field has moved up two spots following the exit of Evans and Mikkelsen to see Kris Meeke up to sixth place on his Toyota debut.

Gus Greensmith continues to lead the WRC2 field for M-Sport Ford, almost 20 seconds clear of Yoann Bonato for Citroen, with Stephane Sarrazin (Hyundai i20 R5) and Guillaume de Mevius (Citroen C3 R5) rounding out the top ten.

Esapekka Lappi suffered his second Rallye Monte-Carlo stop when he suffered a second engine issue during SS9 for Citroen.