Ogier’s “pride” at record fifth win on Wales Rally GB
Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia scored the 44th victory of their career at Wales Rally GB and recorded a record-breaking fifth win on the event they first won back in 2013.
Ten years after making their WRC debut here, the five-time world champions felt that luck was against them when the loss of first and second gears left them trailing the leaders on Friday morning. However, the M-Sport pairing didn’t give up and managed to climb back to second place, after which the rally took on a very different complexion when the leader Ott Tänak was forced to retire on Saturday afternoon.
Going into the final leg, they had a lead of just 4.4 over Jari-Matti Latvala, who proved to be a formidable opponent at the end of the race. The intense duel between the two crews was won by the Frenchmen though, and as they claim their first success since Corsica, they climb to second place in the championship, 7 points behind the leaders.
Commenting on his victory, Sébastien Ogier said:
“We went through a lot of different emotions this weekend! It started off pretty badly, as we soon found ourselves with gearbox problems that nearly caused us to retire and cost us a lot of time from stage 4. But we never gave up and we first managed to get back on the podium after attacking strongly. However, our fight for second place turned into a fight for victory following Ott’s retirement. I really didn’t revel in that though; I thought he didn’t deserve it after the performance he’d given. I know what he’s feeling, because we’ve been regularly affected by racing mishaps recently, but that’s rallying.”
“From that point on, we were really fighting to win and it lasted right up to the final kilometers. We needed to give our all against Jari-Matti, who was really charged up and determined to win, and this with a Toyota which was in great form this weekend. In the end, thanks to a perfect final three stages we managed to snatch victory on a knife-edge!”
“I’m proud that we’ve become the only crew to have won this rally five times, especially as everyone knows about its numerous pitfalls. Ten years ago we made an amazing WRC debut here by winning our maiden stage; this year for the first time they’ve used the same route as in 2008 for that stage, and it has proved lucky for us again, as we have scored a very important win which puts us back in the race for the championship before the last two rounds.”
