Photos from Monte Carlo + shakedown times

Things are finally moving in the mountains – engines are roaring and turbos are breathing excitedly – it’s the shakedown day today and first results and photographs are making their way to the websites all over.

With regards to results, Thierry Neuville was fastest and by quite a margin ahead of Sebastien Loeb in second and Mikko Hirvonen closing the top three positions. The conditions on the shakedown stage were very tricky and slippery, with tire choice playing huge role, in combination of keeping the car under control on slushy surface. There have been few offs, but I’d like to call them “painting the car with proper action livery” instead. Main thing is, everyone went through safely and tomorrow morning first proper stage will get under way.

In the meantime, fans are as busy as always, producing tons of high quality footage and photographic material. There is already too much “coverage” going on at the Youtube, so go and check the results for “Monte Carlo Rally 2013” search.

For photographs, one of the latest galleries is the one by Czech website Rally Mania. I shamelessly stole one of their image for the purpose of this article, but you can see others on Rally-Mania.cz website. Also, if you’re Twitter savvy WRC fan, give these guys a follow: @RallyManiaCZ! Enjoy!

photo: Froněk Honza

Shakedown results:

1. Thierry Neuville 2:26.1
2. Sebastien Loeb 2:28.7
3. Evgeny Novikov 2:28.8
4. Mikko Hirvonen 2:29.4
5. Jari-Matti Latvala 2:30.4
6. Sebastien Ogier 2:30.5
7. Dani Sordo 2:31.8
8. Mads Ostberg 2:32.9