WRC 2020: Hyundai Thierry Neuville claims victory in Rallye Monte-Carlo season opener

Hyundai's Thierry Neuville exacted his revenge on Toyota's Sebastien Ogier by clinching his maiden WRC Monte-Carlo title. In last year's Rallye Monte-Carlo, Neuville had lost the win to Ogier by just 2.2 seconds.

Defending constructors' champion Hyundai is off to a strong start in the 2020 WRC season as Thierry Neuville & Nicolas Gilsoul outgunned the Toyota duo of Sebastien Ogier & Elfyn Evans to take their maiden Rallye Monte-Carlo victory. The Belgian duo powered through on the final day of the rally (SS13-SS16) to finish 12.6 seconds clear off Toyota's French pairing, Ogier & Ingrassia. Ogier's teammates Elfyn Evans & Scott Martin, however, gave him a very close fight but ultimately, the British duo finished in third place, just 1.7 seconds behind Ogier & Ingrassia. Given the fact that both Ogier & Evans marked their debut driving for Toyota in Monte-Carlo, the results are certainly not disappointing for them.

Hyundai's outing though could have been much better as new-signees Ott Tanak & Martin Jarveoja suffered a high-speed crash while coming out of a right-left kink during Stage 4. Their car consequently fell down a ditch and entered a high-speed barrel roll. Both Tanak & Jarveoja, however, came out of the car unharmed. As for Hyundai's remaining pairing, Sebastien Loeb & Daniel Elena finished sixth overall.  

Behind the top-three finishers, Ogier's former Citroen teammate Esapekka Lappi fetched some valuable points (and the best result for the team) on his debut for team M-Sport Ford. His teammate Teemu Suninen finished eighth overall. Toyota's Kalle Rovanpera & Takamoto Katsuta finished fifth & seventh overall, respectively.

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