
Cautious Ogier retains Monte lead
World champion takes no risks to protect Monte-Carlo supremacy
The Frenchman has led from Thursday night’s second special stage and began today’s penultimate leg with a 1min 26.8sec advantage over Norway’s Ole Christian Veiby.
But Gilbert pulled further ahead in the marathon 51.70km opener and stretched the gap to more than three minutes. Victory in the final Sisteron stage gave him a comfortable margin with which to enter the final day.
Germany’s Christian Riedemann closed the gap on Veiby to just 10.7sec, with Simone Tempestini a distant fourth, 2min 13.4sec further back. However, Tempestini prevented Gilbert from taking a clean sweep of stage wins today by topping the times in SS11.
All drivers are at the wheel of Citroen’s DS 3 R3 MAX.