TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team started the 2025 FIA World Rally Championship with a trio of stage wins in the dark and tricky tests that opened Rallye Monte-Carlo on Thursday evening, with Elfyn Evans and Sébastien Ogier both inside the overall top three.
The season officially began in the usual iconic fashion with the cars driving over the start ramp in Monaco’s Casino Square on Thursday afternoon.
From there, the crews drove north to Digne-Les-Bains for an important tyre-fitting zone where they selected their rubber for the upcoming three stages, not knowing the exact conditions they would face in the mountains as darkness fell and temperatures dropped.
Nine-time Rallye Monte-Carlo winner Ogier made a superb start, winning the opening stage by 3.9 seconds ahead of Evans.
He went on to win a more slippery second stage too by 0.9s over Thierry Neuville (Hyundai).
Grip levels were even less consistent in the third and last stage, where Ogier slid wide in a muddy junction and conceded around 15s.
While Evans dropped time in SS2, he set the fastest time in SS3 to finish the night just two seconds from leader Neuville in second overall.
Ogier is 10.8 seconds further back in third.
Kalle Rovanperä is sixth overall after setting the third-best time in SS3.
Dolgellau driver Evans said: “It was a typical Rallye Monte-Carlo start tonight.
“It’s not been easy out there but it’s been the same for everyone really.
“We were just starting to see some frost on the road in places in that last stage, and it’s been a few hours since the route note crews drove through.
“They’ve done a great job but we’re still finding out things when we get there and it’s not easy like that.
“Naturally it’s been challenging but I’m happy to be at the end of it.
“It’s getting colder tonight and we have to see what we face in the morning.”
End of day one (Thursday): 1 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) 32m58.8s; 2 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +2.0s; 3 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +12.8s; 4 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +27.0s; 5 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +30.0s; 6 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +43.9s; 7 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1) +48.8s; 8 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +53.3s; 9 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m24.4s; 10 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +2m16.7s(Results as of 22:00 on Thursday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
What's next? Today, a loop of three stages east and north of Gap is run either side of mid-day service. The opening stage from Saint-Maurice to Saint-Bonnet is run for the first time since 2021, while the subsequent Saint-Léger-les-Mélèzes / La Bâtie-Neuve and La Bréole / Selonnet tests remain from last year.