Any concerns that Sebastien Ogier may struggle in a new team with a new car have been confounded over the weekend, with victory in the WRC season opener.
Ogier and co-driver Julien Ingrassia took the
new Fiesta WRC
to victory two minutes and 15 seconds ahead of Jari-Matti Latvala's Yaris WRC, with the second Fiesta of Ott Tanak and Martin Jarveoja in third. The third M-Sport car of Elfyn Evans was in sixth place.
Encouragingly for the rest of the season, there were four manufacturers in the top five positions on the Monte: the Hyundai i20 of Dani Sordo and Marc Marti was fourth and Craig Breen's Citroen C3 took fifth. Moreover, all three Ford drivers, plus Thierry Neuville (Hyundai) and Stephane Lefebvre (Citroen) took stage victories, so hopefully 2017 is a competitive one between the manufacturers. Perhaps VW leaving was good news.
Of his win, Ogier said: "It always feels good to win at Rallye Monte-Carlo, but this year we had one of the most difficult challenges we have ever had." Remember he only joined the M-Sport team a month ago, with limited preparation for the Monte. Oh yes, and he got stuck in a ditch on Saturday morning. When can't he win?! Despite those stage victories, it could be a tough year for the rest of them...
Second-place man Latvala added: "If you had told me before the start of the rally that this is where we would finish, I would never have believed it. In fact, this equals my best-ever result here." It would therefore seem that the Yaris WRC is competitive out of the box, and that the wild bodywork is doing its job!
Next up for the WRC is Sweden, where Ogier has won three of the past five but Latvala has won two of them also. Seconds out, round two...
See the full list of results here.
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