WRC Rally GB: Sebastien Ogier ends VW's dominant year with victory

The Frenchman beat team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala - winner of this event in each of the past two years - to record his ninth victory of the year.

The new world champion took control early on by winning six of the first nine stages on Friday.

Latvala closed to within 17s of Ogier when he won SS14 on Saturday, but the Frenchman edged his advantage back out to 20 seconds before the end of the day.

Latvala's fading hopes of challenging Ogier for victory were extinguished when his team-mate went fastest through the repeated 13.23-mile stage at Dyfnant first thing on Sunday morning, and Latvala then dropped time by stalling on SS19.

The afternoon's short loop of stages gave Latvala little chance of a fightback and Ogier simply cruised home to his 16th WRC win.

Thierry Neuville completed his final rally for the M-Sport Ford squad by finishing a fine third. He looked under threat from Andreas Mikkelsen through Saturday's stages, but responded by going fastest of all through SS19, the powerstage at Clocaenog.

The prospect of Mikkelsen overhauling the Belgian to complete a remarkable VW podium lockout disappeared on Sunday morning.

Mikkelsen set two fastest stage times on Saturday and closed to within 20s of Neuville, but lost chunks of time by spinning on SS17 and clouting a bank on SS19.

That meant he ultimately finished fifth behind Mads Ostberg, who won SS18 and took a fine fourth for M-Sport.

Martin Prokop's Ford Fiesta comfortably rounded out the top six, ahead of Dani Sordo, who upheld some Citroen honour after both ex-Formula 1 star Robert Kubica and Mikko Hirvonen crashed out of the rally. Sordo also had to carry a five-minute penalty for using a ninth chassis.

Welshman Elfyn Evans (pictured) brought cheer to the local fans by beating Finn Jari Ketomaa to WRC2 honours in eighth overall.

Sebastien Chardonnet clinched the inaugural WRC3 title with second place in class behind Quentin Gilbert.

Leading finishers after SS22:

Pos  Driver              Team/Car        Time/Gap
 1.  Sebastien Ogier     VW            3h03m36.7s
 2.  Jari-Matti Latvala  VW                +21.8s
 3.  Thierry Neuville    M-Sport Ford    +1m24.5s
 4.  Mads Ostberg        M-Sport Ford    +1m48.2s
 5.  Andreas Mikkelsen   VW              +2m03.4s
 6.  Martin Prokop       Czech Ford      +7m37.5s
 7.  Dani Sordo          Citroen         +8m27.9s
 8.  Elfyn Evans         M-Sport Ford   +11m13.1s*
 9.  Jari Ketomaa        Autotek Ford   +12m16.2s*
10.  Mark Higgins        Symtech Ford   +13m21.0s*

* WRC2

Other WRC finishers:

19.  Evgeny Novikov      M-Sport Ford

WRC retirements:

     Robert Kubica       Citroen             SS16
     Mikko Hirvonen      Citroen              SS9