Photo Credit: Volkswagen Motorsport "Sebastien", "Ogier" and "crash" are not three words usually associated with each other, but they were on Sunday 25th October as the World Champion crashed his Polo R WRC en route to his 8th victory of the season and 3rd in succession on the final stage, the Power Stage of Rally RACC Catalunya - Costa Daurada. It was a highly dramatic Power Stage, with close battles up and down the top 10, chiefly the battle for 2nd between Volkswagen team mates Mikkelsen and Latvala. The Norwegian managed to out pace his team mate through the final stage to claim what he thought was 2nd place. Then seconds later, news filtered through that Ogier had carried too much speed into a left hander and smashed into the arm-co barrier, ripping a wheel of his car. In similar circumstances to Ogier's Swedish win where he found out Mikkelsen had binned it, the reverse was true in Spain as it sunk in to Mikkelsen that he was now a WRC winner after 64 rallies. It was a beautiful moment as co-driver Ola Floene was in tears, showing how much it means to the pair and how close the two Norwegians are to each other. And I don't think anybody is more deserving of this turn of luck than Andreas, who has come close to winning a WRC rally on several occasions. He has never been a lover of tarmac, but he may now be changing his mind! As for Ogier, he was airlifted to hospital for checks but was declared fine, but will no doubt have wounded pride and be wondering how he managed to throw away a 50 second lead. Photo Credit: Hyundai Motorsport TSpain's home hero Dani Sordo came home to take yet another podium on his home event, to the delight of the adoring Spanish fans. However, the Hyundai squad are now 8pts behind Citroen as Ostberg and Meeke came home 4th and 5th respectively.
Thierry Neuville was on for a top 6 result but a differential issue led to the Belgian's i20 falling off the road under braking. He managed to complete the rally but lost shed loads of time through the live on TV Power Stage. M-Sport too suffered a miserable event, after an impressive performance from Ott Tanak on the gravel on Friday. However, both he and Elfyn Evans made errors on Saturday to all but end the Cumbrian squad's chances of taking 2nd in the championship. The main talking point though (and rightly so) is Mikkelsen's first ever victory. Can he carry this momentum into Wales Rally GB? I expect the battle between all 3 VW's in Wales to be epic! Should be a great ending to the season.
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January 2018
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