Quote Originally Posted by mknight View Post
There is no doubt Ogier is the biggest favorite, maybe even bigger than in Mexico.
Reasons are very much the same, historically very good rally for both him and the car.

Tanak has to be a favorite as well after finishing 2nd last year and leading the championship now.

Meeke is a joker here, again very much for same reason like in Mexico, historically very good speed here but also 3 retirements out of last 3 rounds (1 co-driver error, 1 technical, 1 own error).

Lappi is a very interesting joker due to his speed last year and driving Citroen now, but so was he in Mexico and the speed wasn't all that good. Also made a mistake that effectively cost him 3rd here last year.

None of the other drivers are straight top 3 favorites for me for multiple reasons. Hyundai is likely to struggle a lot since it doesn't look like they make any big changes on tarmac, but there could be surprises. Without them I'd expect something like 4th place (speedwise) for Neuville with Loeb and Sordo being behind that. For Latvala, this is not really the kind of rally that helps building confidence, so I doubt he will have top pace consistently for whole rally. Evans usually does well here but really doubt it will be top 3 level. Suninen never drove here in WRC and in R5 he wasn't exactly fastest either, needs to keep it on the road now as well.
Thanks for stopping the GForce-Camera-helmet penis measuring contest.