WRC: Ogier takes Monte lead from Meeke

Sebastien Ogier retook the lead of the Monte Carlo Rally from Kris Meeke on the final stage of the Friday morning loop of the 2016 World Rally Championship season opener.

Ogier went quickest on the third and fifth stages of the rally, while overnight lead Meeke split the WRC champions's stage wins with a scratch time on SS4.

On the fourth stage, Ogier clipped a bridge and damaged the rear of his Volkswagen, but the car was still capable of snatching the lead from Meeke on the next run, where Ogier was 8.2s quicker than the Northern Irishman to move 1.5s ahead overall.

The remaining VWs of Andreas Mikkelsen and Jari-Matti Latvala sit third and fourth with both having a steady morning, albeit off the pace of their French teammate.

The new Hyundais struggled all morning, handling issues hampering Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo. Neuville was in damage limitation mode holding fifth, while Sordo is in seventh. The Spaniard could well come under attack in the afternoon from Frenchman Eric Camilli. The M-Sport driver – in his first rally in a WRC car – went fifth quickest on SS4 before seventh on SS5 left him 3.6s behind the Hyundai in an impressive display.

Citroen's Stephane Lefebvre and DMACK's Ott Tanak round out the top 10.

Both Hayden Paddon – who had ran as high as fourth in the 2015-spec Hyundai i20 – and Robert Kubica retired after incidents with trees on SS4.

Elfyn Evans ends the morning in the lead of WRC2, having taken just three stages to overturn a deficit of well over a minute after a puncture on the first stage. He took the lead on SS4 and pulled out a gap of 35.5s in total over main rival Quentin Gilbert.

Originally on Autosport.com