Toyota's Sebastien Ogier moved a step closer to a record-extending 10th Monte Carlo Rally win after increasing his lead at the World Rally Championship season-opener on Saturday morning.
The eight-time world champion managed to increase his overnight advantage to 17.2s over Hyundai's Adrien Fourmaux, who leapfrogged Toyota's Elfyn Evans [+20.0s].
Kalle Rovanpera just about hung onto fourth after coming under intense pressure from Hyundai's Ott Tanak, the gap between the pair down to one second.
Takamoto Katsuta [+1m35.2s], Sami Pajari [+3m50.1s] and Thierry Neuville [+5m06.2s] filled sixth through eighth, while WRC2 class leader Yohan Rossel moved to ninth ahead of M-Sport's Rally1 debutant Josh McErlean.
Ogier picked up from where he left off on Friday, producing a stunning drive to extend his rally lead to 16.8s. Ogier faced incredibly dirty and damp road conditions being the last Rally1 car into the stage, but somehow he managed to deliver a blistering effort to be 4.2s faster than rivals Evans and Fourmaux, who posted identical times.
But Ogier couldn't top the timing screens as M-Sport's Gregoire Munster, starting first on the road, recorded his maiden WRC stage win. Ogier reached the stage finish 0.8s slower than the Ford driver which triggered celebrations for Munster and co-driver Louis Louka. The triumph arrived after a suspected electrical fault forced the pair to retire at the end of Friday.
"Congrats to Munster. Massive road condition difference. Well done, he did already some good times yesterday. He is on a good path. It's a good start for us, I am happy," said Ogier.
Rovanpera maintained his hold of fourth overall ahead of Tanak after posting the third-fastest time.
There was however yet more drama for Neuville who lost more than a minute when his i20 N suddenly slowed which necessitated a stoppage to conduct a full reset before he could continue.
"I had to do a reset. The car went and then I lost the power like in Japan, we thought the turbo was gone," said Neuville.
"In the situation we were in, let's try to do a reset, and we were fine since. No idea, no alarm, nothing. Now it is working."
For safety reasons, stage 11 (Aucelon/Recoubeau-Jansac, 15.48km) was shortened by 5.37km with the starting point moved.
A continuation of the dry road surfaces with damp patches greeted the crews, but road conditions deteriorated after every pass.
Munster was unable to repeat his stage-winning pace but revealed that he chose to "keep his feet on the ground" after the success.
"Really good feeling for winning the previous stage, everyone was a bit gutted yesterday but I think this is a big thank you for them, all the team that worked really hard last night," said Munster.
"Years of commitment and work to finally get a reward, it is a very nice feeling. I didn't want to do too much in this one because you need to keep your feet on the ground, but it is a tricky one."
It was Tanak who set the pace in the test as he cut the gap to fourth-placed Rovanpera to 2.9s.
There was further movement on the leaderboard as Ogier was stunned by how dirty the road had become, and could only post the fifth fastest time. The Toyota driver was slower than both Fourmaux and Evans, meaning his lead was reduced to 12.3s.
That advantage was now over Fourmaux, who overhauled Evans for second despite losing time to a stall at a square right. Evans said he was caught out by the amount of cuts required in the stage.
Light rain towards the end of stage 12, the final of the loop, made the challenging conditions even worse.
Katsuta managed to tame the slippery road surface the best to win the stage by 1.3s from the recovering Neuville.
Ogier was only 2.4s shy of the pace but was however quicker than his nearest rivals Fourmaux and Evans, which allowed the Frenchman to recover the time loss from the previous stage.
Tanak took another 1.9s out of Rovanpera as the battle for fourth overall came down to only a second.
The crews will complete a second pass through the trio of stages this afternoon.
