Photo Credit: Volkswagen Motorsport He had to wait 6 months for it, but Frenchman Sebastien Ogier racked up career win #35 on the ADAC Rallye Deutschland at the weekend, taking his third win of the season.
The World Champion has been hampered with road positioning on the past few rallies due to leading the championship and subsequently sweeping the loose gravel away for his rivals, but the sealed tarmac roads of the Moselland vineyard roads and Baumholder military area presented no such problems for VW's number 1. However, Ogier and Ingrassia did not have it easy on round 9 of the championship, with the fight coming from across the garage and over at Hyundai Motorsport, with good friends Andreas Mikkelsen and Thierry Neuville along with Dani Sordo all right in the thick of the battle in what became a four car fight for the podium. It was the Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen who got the best start, leading after the opening day in what was largely considered to be his best day of the 2016 WRC season. However, as the pressure mounted to keep his fast charging team mate behind him, mistakes started to creep in, and Ogier burst clear on the Panzerplatte long tests, snatching 13 seconds from his rivals on the first run, ultimately deciding the fate of the rally. Mikkelsen would ultimately lose out to his Hyundai rivals too, in what was an epic three car duel for the final two podium places on Sunday. The two Hyundai drivers Neuville and Sordo, previous winners of the German round of the championship, were majestic to watch, incredibly closely matched and proved the pace of the new-generation i20 WRC. Admittedly Ogier did manage to streak away on Saturday much like his great compatriot Sebastien Loeb used to, but Sordo and Neuville set a lot of fastest stage times, and kept the VW's honest, with both of them overhauling Mikkelsen on Sunday morning despite the Norwegian pushing to the maximum. In the end, the returning Dani Sordo got the better of his team mate from across the border in Belgium, but by the slenderest of margins possible - 0.1 seconds. Both had great rallies, and Sordo subsequently picked up a new 2 year deal to stay at Hyundai Motorsport until 2018. The other Hyundai man, Hayden Paddon, was a rather distant fifth, competing on a surface he himself admits is not his favourite. The Kiwi had a spectacular time of it on Friday, including a huge high speed moment he was lucky to escape from unscathed. Mads Ostberg came home sixth, another lacklustre and distant finish for the Norwegian who has now slipped behind Dani Sordo in the championship despite having competed on an extra event compared to the Spaniard. The rest of the top 10 was filled out by Skoda Fabia R5's, with Finn Esapekka Lappi leading the quartet. So what of the other 4 WRC drivers? Jari-Matti Latvala and Eric Camilli both never made it to the first stop control of the rally, with Latvala's Polo grinding to a halt with transmission woes and Camilli parking his Fiesta in the German countryside, not what we were expecting from the Frenchman on his preferred surface. Ott Tanak was running in fifth ahead of Paddon and Ostberg until on day 2 the alternator on his DMACK Fiesta WRC had had enough, and it was Rally 2 for the Estonian from then on in. Stephane Lefebvre and Gabin Moreau were entered in a privately run DS3 WRC after the Abu Dhabi Total WRT decided not to run any cars on the first true tarmac event of the season. The Frenchman funded his own drive, keen to respond to Craig Breen's podium performance in Finland. Sadly it wasn't to come good for Lefebvre. Despite taking a stage win and running well in the top 6, it was Panzerplatte that would catch him out. He ran wide on a corner, hit the famously notorious hinkelsteins and careered into the trees. Both he and Moreau were hospitalised, but are thankfully on the mend. The next round of the WRC is the Tour de Corse after the cancellation of Rally China, and I've got a funny feeling a certain French World Champion may have his eye on a Corsican win and first victory on home soil since 2013.
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WRCArticles covering the World Rally Championship Archives
January 2018
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