Day 2 Monte – Evans leads but Ogier closes the gap in Gap!

It was quite a day of rallying, which ended in a draw between two of the WRC’s greatest players : three fastest times for Thierry Neuville (SS3, SS6, SS7), three also for Sébastien Ogier (SS4, SS5, SS8) in this 92nd Rally Monte-Carlo where the Frenchman is the title holder… with absolutely no guarantee of retaining it on Sunday.
“We did our job. We came back well (in the overall standings). It was a good day,”
soberly summed up Ogier at the pitstop on SS8, which was run entirely at night and in which he put his foot down to finish the day on a high. The Frenchman from the Hautes-Alpes, eight-time world champion and nine-time winner in Monte-Carlo, is now just 4.5 seconds behind his Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans, who was dominant on Thursday evening but much more cautious on Friday (no best time all day).
“This rally is never easy. And it’s very difficult at night. I had a lot of information, but I couldn’t manage everything at once. I had to trust the notes. It was very difficult to assess the road conditions. I’m happy to have got to the end of the day without a single problem,” said the Welshman.
His lead over Neuville was 15 seconds on Friday morning when he left Gap. On Saturday morning, it will be just 4.5 seconds over another big WRC customer: the formidable Seb Ogier, who is not aiming for the world title this year. That’s somet