How confronting self-doubt drove Ogier to become a WRC legend

The familiar sight of Sebastien Ogier in full flow, fighting for yet another World Rally Championship title, will be a vision of the past next year as the rallying great brings the curtain down on his full-time career on this weekend's Rally Monza season finale.

From the outside, the way WRC’s very own human metronome has continued to pump out title after title has appeared relatively straightforward. But that is the magic of Ogier. He’s a master of making the arguably the most difficult of motor racing disciplines seem easy.

The unflappable Frenchman very rarely shows his emotions and a flawless performance behind the wheel is expected at every rally, while a mistake is treated like a collector's item. That is the level Ogier has strived for and reached during a WRC career that has, to date, yielded 53 WRC rally wins and seven world titles in the past eight years with three different manufacturers (Volkswagen, M-Sport Ford and Toyota).

Since 2013, only once has he been beaten - by Ott Tanak's Toyota in 2019, when Ogier made a short-lived return to Citroen - having gone undefeated across his four years competing in VW's all-conquering Polo and the two he spent driving M-Sport's Fiesta.

Should he see off Toyota team-mate and rival Elfyn Evans at Rally Monza by scoring 13 championship points, Ogier could secure an impressive eighth world title - ensuring he would also carry an unbeaten record with the Japanese manufacturer - that would put him just one behind the WRC’s all-time greatest Sebastien Loeb. It is however only a partial goodbye, as Ogier will contest a part-time schedule next year beginning in Monte Carlo as part of shared Toyota entry with his 2019 Citroen team-mate Esapekka Lappi.

To emphasise Ogier’s weight of achievement since making his full WRC debut with the Citroen Junior Team in 2009, the 37-year-old has a won more than a third of his 148 WRC rallies in top-flight equipment (not counting his 2008 Junior WRC title-winning campaign in an S1600 C2, and the 2012 season he campaigned a Skoda Fabia S1600 while developing the Polo WRC), and been on the podium for 90 of those (just over 60%).

Ogier has been an unstoppable winning machine in the WRC over the past decade

Photo by: Toyota Racing

Many have their opinions as to the secret of Ogier’s prolonged WRC success - what lies behind his enduring ability to produce performances that can seem machine-like, such has been his metronomic run of wins and titles. God-given talent is only part of the story, for it is the way this has been harnessed and improved upon that has moulded Ogier into a WRC legend.

Experts have claimed Ogier’s ability to transition a superb, smooth and less flamboyant tarmac driving style to gravel as one reason for his success, while others highlight his ability to somehow limit the damage of opening the road on gravel, a regular hindrance given he is usually leading the championship from start to finish. He has, after all, won the traditional season-opening Monte Carlo rally a record eight times.

It also requires a watertight relationship with an equally talented co-driver, in Ogier’s case Julien Ingrassia, who has been ever present over the last 16 years and will call time on his career this weekend.

However, reflecting on his career in an interview with Autosport, Ogier reveals the secrets to his success are far more complex. He comes across cool and calm behind the wheel, but peel away the layers and he says there has been plenty of self-doubt over his ability. Channelling this, with a relentless push for perfection, he believes is at the root of his dominance.

"I have always showed this strange mental strength I have and don’t let out many emotions. But inside me, I had some doubts. I doubted myself many times and I think it is the best way to try to progress and improve yourself" Sebastien Ogier

“It is a good question and it is always difficult to answer,” reflects Ogier, who has set his sights on a switch to endurance racing next year. “I have been strong on tarmac but in truth, since I started rallying at the beginning, I enjoyed even more driving on gravel. It is a surface where you can feel and exploit the most of the potential of a world rally car. But having to open the road for many many rallies, especially on gravel, I have killed a little bit of the joy because it often puts you in situation where it is super-challenging to be fast on this surface when you start first.

“I would say whatever I achieved in my career, I always took the time to reflect and ask myself, 'How I can be better?' I never felt inside me that, 'This is it now, I am the best [and] I don’t need to do anything'. I always questioned myself, even on a successful weekend.

“Of course, outside I have always showed this strange mental strength I have and don’t let out many emotions. But inside me, I had some doubts. I doubted myself many times and I think it is the best way to try to progress and improve yourself.”

So there we have it, even the world’s best have doubts. Ogier is human after all.

Channelling his doubts has been key to Ogier

Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images

The Frenchman’s words are a valuable lesson that can be applied to one's own life. It's okay to doubt - what matters is how you deal with them. Ogier elected to confront his doubts head on and has been rewarded with a career he will look back on fondly in years to come.

“I feel really happy of course with what I have achieved in the sport,” he says. “When you have the dream to access this world, nobody dared to dream that high and win that much.

“The dream was to become world champion and that is something I managed in 2013. After that, to add many more victories and titles was really a privilege. It has been a fantastic journey, where I managed to win with different teams and different people, and all those memories I will cherish them forever.

“During your career, sometimes you don’t take the time to reflect and look at all that. I’m sure when I slow down, I will be a little bit more appreciative.”

Those who have watched Ogier at close quarters need no second invitation to laud his achievements, which have reverberated around the WRC world. Former team-mate and rival at Volkswagen, now his Toyota team boss, Jari-Matti Latvala has been left in awe.

“For me, when you say the name Sebastien Ogier, the first thing that comes to my mind is that he is the hardest head-to-head fighter we have ever seen in the rally world,” says the Finn. “He gets this spark when he is under pressure and, when he is fighting, he seems to get more energy for these moments. I would say he has lifted up the level of all the other drivers in the championship. If you can beat Ogier in a head-to-head fight, you have to be really really good.”

While Ogier is in a mood for reflection as his full-time career hits the proverbial final time control, his pursuit of perfection remains and his thirst for world title number eight is as strong as ever. So much so that he’s not allowing the emotions of his final hurrah creep in.

One rally separates Ogier from world title number eight before he ends his full-time WRC career

Photo by: Toyota Racing

“We have still business to finish in Monza and a title to fight for, which means I try to stay very focused on that,” he says. “Also the fact that I will remain with Toyota and there is still this possibility to do some rallies, so it is not a clear stop.

“I guess that is why that I’m not thinking as much about that fact that it is the end of the full campaign. So far I haven’t been caught by the emotion [of it]; let’s see what happens. First of all the plan is to finish on a high of course. It might be an emotional weekend at the end.

“I think we are in a good position, but it is motorsport and nothing is done and we have to finish the job. I know [the championship] is not over yet and we have to perform to win.”

Ogier is determined not to allow emotions to get in the way as he prepares for Monza

Photo by: Toyota Racing