Photo Credit: M-Sport It's been four months, but World Champion Sebastien Ogier returned to the top step of the podium at the weekend on round six of the 2017 FIA World Rally Championship, Vodafone Rally de Portugal. The win marked Ogier's fifth victory in Portugal to draw level with Markku Alen on the winners' list, but was only his first Portuguese triumph since the rally moved to its spiritual home in the hills around Porto.
Portugal was the first European gravel event with this new spec of World Rally Car, and experts and insiders were always quick to point out the true form book would be revealed from this rally onwards. Tantalising then, as throughout the event we saw seven different leaders, nine different stage winners and a top eight that at one point on Friday was covered by less than 10 seconds. Despite sweeping the stages of the loose gravel to the benefit of his rivals, Ogier was well in contention after Friday's action and on Saturday he made his move. Using all his talent and benefiting from others' misfortunes, the Frenchman opened up a 20 second lead that he would never relinquish to take career win number 40. It was timely too after the first non-podium of the campaign in Argentina. Continuing his rich vein of form, Hyundai's Thierry Neuville took his fourth straight podium in the i20 Coupe WRC but missed out on the hattrick of victories with second place. The Belgian's driving style doesn't really suit the stages in the north, with the emphasis often on sliding the car into corners which contradicts his precise style. Second was an impressive and important result though for the championship, especially considering with Power Stage points factored in he only dropped four points to Ogier. Hyundai capped off another strong rally with Dani Sordo and Marc Marti occupying the final step of the podium. Portugal was an impressive performance from the likeable Spaniard, who balanced speed with consistency to stay in the fight and crucially not drop out of it. He couldn't quite live with Ogier and Neuville's pace come Saturday and Sunday but this result is crucial for Hyundai Motorsport in the manufactures' championship. Fourth went the way of Ott Tanak and Martin Jarveoja. The Estonian led the rally after Friday's eye-watering scrap, but unfortunately the pressure of his M-Sport team mate hunting him down got to him, and Tanak ran wide on a right hander which damaged the suspension on his Fiesta RS WRC. Ott persevered and continued to claim another strong result to further bolster his already blooming reputation. There was deja vu for Craig Breen and Scott Martin as they brought their Citroen C3 WRC home in fifth. Involved in Friday's battle along with so many others, Breen's lack of experience of the Portuguese roads began to show at times as the weekend progressed, not being able to live with the ultimate pace of others around them. But once again the Irishman brought the car home as the highest placed Citroen, and such performances won't be going unnoticed by team management. Elfyn Evans and Dan Barritt brought their DMACK shod Fiesta WRC home sixth after their agonising second place in Argentina. Evans' pace wasn't what it was in South America, but he could have been in the hunt for a podium if he hadn't punctured on Friday. A driver error on Saturday which saw him fly off the road into the undergrowth after overcooking the previous corner broke a damper and slowed the Welshman, but the Brit recovered for another top six result. Juho Hanninen took seventh overall and for the first time finished as the top Toyota driver and did so with two team mates instead of just one. The Yaris WRC pilot finished one place ahead of the OneBet Jipocar World Rally Team Fiesta of Mads Ostberg who was using DMACK tyres for the first time, while the other Toyota's of Jari-Matti Latvala and WRC debutante Esapekka Lappi rounded out the top ten. Latvala was leading the rally mid-way through the opening leg, but a low speed roll saw the Finn hemorrhage time. From then on he wasn't feeling well which affected his confidence, with Jari even spending Saturday night on a drip in hospital in order to recover liquids which seemed to help him on Sunday. Lappi put in an impressive debut performance, including a fourth place on the Power Stage to claim vital points for Toyota Gazoo Racing that keeps them ahead of Citroen Racing in the manufactures championship. Kris Meeke and Stephane Lefebvre yet again had disappointing rallies for Citroen. Lefebvre rolled his C3 in the first proper stage of the rally while Meeke ran wide and broke his suspension on Friday. Khalid Al Qassimi joined the team in a fourth C3 but wouldn't trouble the front runners, claiming 17th overall. Hayden Paddon and Sebastian Marshall made their WRC debut together four events early in Portugal after John Kennard had to step back through injury. The partnership is looking strong, but it wasn't given the full chance to blossom after electrical issues slowed the Kiwi driver and destroyed his rally after being right in contention early on. Encouragingly, Paddon's strong pace indicates that the signs are positive Hayden's disastrous season may be turning a corner. Portugal marked the first of three mandatory events in this year's WRC2 championship, so the battle was expected to be exhilarating. The early signs were contradictory however, with Andreas Mikkelsen opening up a lead of over three minutes in a Skoda Fabia R5 heading into the event-closing Fafe stage. However, the Norwegian left the road and scuppered a chance of a crushing victory, which was needless considering his advantage. This was a shame as he was running inside the top ten despite 14 WRC cars having entered the event. That left Pontus Tidemand and Teemu Suninen to squabble over the spoils, and incredibly Tidemand's 30 second cushion was almost wiped out with a puncture. With Skoda management's nails now beyond existence, M-Sport's Finn stopped the clocks 15 seconds faster and thus had to settle for second. Tidemand is now in the box seat for this season's title after four wins from four starts. WRC teams, take note. There's only a short break of two weeks before the WRC returns to action in Sardinia. The season is proving as captivating as ever, but the championship is narrowing into a two horse race between M-Sport's Sebastien Ogier and Hyundai's Thierry Neuville.
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January 2018
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