Monte Carlo Rally master Ogier takes 10th win on WRC opener

Sebastien Ogier has taken a record-extending 10th victory on the Monte Carlo Rally, the opening round of the 2025 FIA World Rally Championship.

Driving a Toyota GR Yaris Rally1, the eight-time WRC champ (above) secured victory by 18.5s over his Toyota Gazoo Racing teammate Elfyn Evans after a short, but tense final leg through the French Alps. Sunday’s trio of all-asphalt stages threatened to shake up the order. Ogier and Evans opted to carry four studded Hankook tires and only two super-soft slicks – an approach that proved effective on the icy roads of the 8.68-mile Avancon/Notre-Dame du Laus opener, but left them vulnerable on the drier penultimate test, 11.81-mile Digne-les-Bains/Chaudon-Norante. There, third-placed Adrien Fourmaux shone with a full-slicks setup on his Hyundai i20 N Rally1, outpacing the leading Toyotas by 3.9s and 17.8s, respectively, and briefly threatening to turn the podium order upside down.

Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux almost gate-crashed Toyota’s Monte Carlo Rally 1-2 on Sunday’s closing leg. Red Bull Content Pool

Fourmaux, making his Hyundai WRC debut after switching from M-Sport Ford, had hoped for drier conditions on the rally-ending Wolf Power Stage to maximize his slick-tire advantage. Instead, the icy Col de Turini leveled the playing field, leaving him on the same mixed-tire setup as Ogier and Evans. Ogier capitalized with another stage win, while Evans held off Fourmaux’s late charge by just 7.5s, despite a heart-stopping brush with a rock face.

“What a weekend,” reflected Ogier, who was born and raised close to the Monte Carlo Rally stages and whose first win on the WRC’s most famous event came during its short tenure in the now-defunct International Rally Championship days in 2009. “I don’t know where to start. I think I’ve had my lucky star with me this weekend – my uncle, who we lost one year ago. I am sure he was bringing me everything and this one is for him.

“I have no idea if it is my last now,” added the 41-year-old Frenchman, who’s once again elected to run only a part-time WRC program in 2025. “It would be a good place to stop.”

Sebastien Ogier celebrates his 10th Monte Carlo Rally win with co-driver Vincent Landais, but could it be the eight-time champ’s last start on the WRC classic? Red Bull Content Pool

The final-day drama extended far beyond the podium battle, with Sunday’s treacherous conditions wreaking havoc further down the field. Toyota’s Sami Pajari and Takamoto Katsuta both slid off the road on the icy opening stage, while Gregoire Munster’s M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 met a similar fate on the very next stage.

Behind the third-placed Fourmaux, Hyundai’s Ott Tanak ceded fourth position to full-time WRC returnee Kalle Rovanpera’s GR Yaris on the final day due to Tanak’s own tire misjudgment. The pair finished just 4.7s apart, with both drivers now eager to bounce back on next month’s Rally Sweden as previous winners of the WRC’s only true snow-and-ice event.

Thierry Neuville, the reigning WRC champ and defending Monte Carlo Rally winner, salvaged sixth place after a tumultuous event. A combination of broken suspension on his Hyundai in a Friday crash, a deflated tire and an unexplained electrical issue added up to cost him more than five minutes, thwarting his hopes of a repeat win.

M-Sport Ford’s Josh McErlean impressed with a solid seventh-place finish in his Puma Rally1, the Irishman building experience and doing exactly what his team had asked of him on his Rally1 debut.

M-Sport Ford’s Josh McErlean took a mistake-free seventh overall on his Rally1 debut. Red Bull Content Pool

In WRC2, the second tier of international rallying, Yohan Rossel’s 2025 title aspirations were giving an early boost as he wrapped up an emphatic class victory.

A year ago, the Citroen C3 Rally2 driver edged out Pepe Lopez by just 4.0s in a nail-biting finish. This time, however, the Frenchman was in a class of his own – cruising to victory with a staggering near-three-minute margin over his nearest points-scoring rival. Partnered with co-driver Arnaud Dunand, PH Sport’s Rossel was fastest of the points-chasers on 15 of the event’s 17 stages and led the field from start to finish.

Nikolay Gryazin had taken the fight to him in his WRC2-spec Skoda Fabia RS, but hadn’t included the Monte as one of his seven points-counting events. That left Rossel leading a French 1-2-3 finish among the registered drivers, with Eric Camilli heading in second in his Hyundai i20 N Rally 2 and younger brother Leo Rossel grabbing third in a second PH Sport Citroen. “Thanks to all my team,” said a magnanimous Yohan. “It was not the driver that won this weekend, it was the co-driver, the team, the strategy and the tire choice.”

Citroen’s Yohan Rossel repeated his 2024 WRC2 class win on the Monte, but in considerably more dominant form. Red Bull Content Pool

Round 2 of the WRC takes place on the snow and ice of northeast Sweden, Feb. 13-16. Based in Umea, Rally Sweden includes some of the fastest stages of the season, thanks to studded tires and snow banks that drivers “wall ride” to stay on course. Ogier is choosing to skip an event he’s won three times, yet tolerates rather than enjoys, which presents a golden opportunity for some of the other leading crews to start putting their mark on the 2025 points race.

WRC Monte Carlo Rally, final positions after Sunday/Leg Three, SS18
1 Sebastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) 3h19m06.1s
2 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +18.5s
3 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +26.0s
4 Kalle Rovanpera/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +54.3s
5 Ott Tanak/Martin Jarveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +59.0s
6 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +5m44.2s
7 Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy (Ford Puma Rally1) +10m15.1s
8 Yohan Rossel/Arnaud Dunand (Citroen C3 – WRC2 winner) +10m26.8s
9 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Skoda Fabia RS – WRC2 non-points) +11m40.7s
10 Eric Camilli/Thibault de la Haye (Hyundai i20 N Rally2) +13m14.6s

WRC Drivers’ Championship after 1 of 14 rounds
1 Ogier 33 points
2 Evans 26
3 Fourmaux 20
4 Rovanpera 18
5 Tanak 11

WRC Manufacturers’ Championship after 1 of 14 rounds
1 Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT 60 points
2 Hyundai Word Rally Team 36
3 M-Sport Ford 11

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