Thierry Neuville finished Friday at Rally Monte Carlo with 45.1sec lead in front of Sebastien Ogier. He set the second best time in SS3 and scored three wins in succession from SS4-SS6. The Belgian encountered some difficulties on the final two stages but was still able to increase his lead from 7.8s to over 45sec.
“I felt really comfortable with the car in this morning’s loop, even if there were a few settings we wanted to change at lunchtime service”, Thierry Neuville said
“We experienced some understeer in the tight corners, and it was a bit more slippery than we thought it would be. The afternoon started well but in SS7 we found our pace notes to be set up more for ice and snow, when the terrain was, in fact, more slushy. We lost too much time there. Then, in the final stage, we were going well until an engine stall at a hairpin that cost us around ten seconds during the restart procedure. It was not the best end to the day but we have to be happy to lead this rally by such a margin. It’s never enough around Monte-Carlo, though, and we know that Seb and Ott will push us tomorrow. There’s a long way to go, so we’re not getting carried away.”
SS8 #Neuville: “We lost turbo boost after stalling the engine.We didn’t press the reset button & drove for 500m before we reset the system.”
— Hyundai Motorsport (@HMSGOfficial) 20 January 2017
| 1. | T. Neuville | N. Gilsoul | Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC | |
| 2. | S. Ogier | J. Ingrassia | Ford Fiesta WRC | +45.1sec |
| 3. | O. Tanak | M. Jarveoja | Ford Fiesta WRC | +45.4 |
| 4. | J. M. Latvala | M. Anttila | Toyota Yaris WRC | +2:09.7min |
| 5. | D. Sordo | M. Martí | Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC | +2:57.8 |
| 6. | C. Breen | S. Martin | Citroën DS3 WRC | +3:04.1 |
| 7. | A. Mikkelsen | A. Jaeger | Škoda Fabia R5 | +5:50.8 |
| 8. | E. Evans | D. Barritt | Ford Fiesta WRC | +8:12.1 |
| 9. | P. Tidemand | J. Andersson | Škoda Fabia R5 | +8:22.4 |
| 10. | J. Kopecky | P. Dresler | Škoda Fabia R5 | +8:38.2 |
