The latest Ogier record amid Portuguese drama for the WRC title fighters

Fourteen years ago, a fresh-faced Sebastien Ogier announced himself on the World Rally Championship stage by becoming a WRC rally winner for the first time in Portugal. So, it was perhaps written in the stars that the nation played host to the Frenchman’s 60th triumph.

Back in 2010, Ogier had to see off the WRC’s most successful driver and then Citroen team-mate in Sebastien Loeb to join the winner’s circle. Last weekend the now eight-time world champion, competing part-time, defeated Ott Tanak, the only driver other than Loeb to lift a world title during his glittering full-time career. It was a win delivered in a manner that according to Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala showcased the attributes that have made Ogier multiple world champion.

This 60th win followed a triumph in Croatia last month that marked his 100th career podium providing further evidence that Ogier, who turned 40 last year, is one of motorsport’s enduring true greats and, perhaps worrying for his rivals, is showing no signs of slowing down. While his world title fighting days appear to be over, he’s still picking up records with his latest success making him the most successful driver in Rally Portugal history, moving one win clear of Markku Alen.

“It looks like every weekend I get to enjoy nice new number, so I have to enjoy these moments and cherish them as you never know when it is going to end,” said Ogier after beating Tanak by 7.9s. “We are still having a good run and my age hasn’t hit us too bad yet, so we have to continue like this. It [the record] means a lot as he [Markku] is a legend.”

This wasn’t a straightforward victory for Ogier and co-driver Vincent Landais, with the Toyota driver among a group of five to lead the 22-stage rally in what lived up to the billing as one of the most competitive rallies of the season. This was the topic leading up to the event given Toyota had put its cards firmly on the table by fielding its world champion part-time drivers Ogier and Kalle Rovanpera in the same event for the first time as it looked to open up a gap over Hyundai that has been breathing down its neck in the title race, assisted by the new points system.

Many felt this would set up a Rovanpera-versus-Ogier scrap thanks to the pair’s envious road positions (seventh and fifth) for the gravel stages. This prediction did come true, but it didn’t last the whole rally as the battle included another protagonist in Tanak, desperate to right a tough start to the season that had yet to yield a podium finish. “I feel more comfortable here so I definitely will attack and try to maximise and take everything out that I can,” he said. “I would say, it will be one of the most competitive rallies this year for sure.”

Ogier faced multiple opponents for victory in Portugal, but Tanak stuck it out as his nearest challenger

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

The Estonian wasn’t wrong as Friday produced one of the tightest battles and one of high quality as none of the nine Rally1 drivers made a mistake across eight challenging gravel stages. Only 17.5s covered the top eight as they headed to a midday tyre-fitting zone.

Championship leader Thierry Neuville had feared the cost of being the roadsweeper on the stages, leading to the Hyundai driver downplaying his hopes. Heading into Friday, Neuville led the rally after winning Thursday night’s beachside asphalt superspecial that he described as “absolutely nonsense” as crews were unable to put on a proper show for the huge passionate crowd that had gathered given the need to save their tyres.

Damp conditions played into Neuville’s hands and, thanks to a stunning win on the famous Arganil (stage five). Neuville completed the morning in second, 2.9s behind Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta, free from the pressure of scoring manufacturer points. “I stuck to my plan all the way through, we’ve had a really good morning,” beamed Neuville.

Ogier survived Arganil without an intercom, incredibly the first time it has occurred in his 185th WRC event. It left him largely blind as Landais frantically switched to hand signals to guide their Toyota

It was the opposite for title rival Elfyn Evans as he led a chorus of grumbles from the Toyota camp as all four drivers were unhappy with the balance of their GR Yaris cars. Evans, sitting in eighth, was perhaps the worst hit: “It’s not going well, feeling is not good in the car. We’re limited.”

Ogier, competing on gravel for the first time since the Acropolis Rally last September, was only three positions ahead. He survived Arganil without an intercom, incredibly the first time it has occurred in his 185th WRC event. It left Ogier largely blind as Landais frantically switched to hand signals to guide their Toyota which Ogier described as “too lazy” through the stage.

Even Rovanpera, who sat 3.3s shy in third, wasn’t particularly happy. “I don’t know why but we are struggling with the balance of the car,” he said. The intense heat only added to his struggles: “I can tell you one thing, black car and this heat, equals sweat.”

Initially all the Toyotas struggled for balance on the gravel stages

Photo by: Toyota Racing

Tanak joined the club of unhappy drivers, saying “there was nothing positive” as he struggled to work the magic in the i20 N. It was a stark contrast to his seven-time Portugal podium finishing, team-mate Dani Sordo, making his first start of the season. The veteran won stages three and four after dropping 12s on the day’s first.

“First stage was really bad for me it was a case of come back or stay home,” said Sordo, who ended the morning 5.6s ahead of M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux, having gambled on taking one spare. The Frenchman, new to being at the top of the road order at the start of gravel rallies, was happy with his loop and continued to showcase current enjoyment of life in the WRC by selecting another movie quote to sign off his stage-end interviews. The choice this week a simple “stay classy WRC” an adaptation from Will Ferrell’s Anchorman movie franchise.

Friday afternoon witnessed the first real drama for the Rally1 crews, and it came in the form of a bizarre incident for Evans and co-driver Scott Martin, triggering the start of the unravelling of their rally. A delay in officials marking timecards at the end of stage six caused a bottleneck and Neuville’s co-driver Martijn Wydaeghe was forced to exit the car. He was soon joined by Martin once Evans had pulled up. Unfortunately for Martin, he accidently left his pacenote book on the time control desk and was without his directional bible to guide Evans through the remining three stages. Luckily, Martin kept a back-up of the crucial directions on his phone, so he swapped book for phone, turned off any notification distractions from social media, and read from his tiny phone screen.

But to compound the misfortune, Evans knocked a tyre off the rim in stage seven, which cost the Welshman nearly a minute and dented his chances of a strong Saturday points haul. A wry smile from Evans summed up how bad his luck had turned, but he was impressed by Martin’s seamless transition to calling notes from a phone. “There was obviously the odd stumble when the phone didn’t do what he wanted, but otherwise it wasn’t disturbing and almost as good as the normal thing,” said Evans. “But, basically everything we touched has gone wrong.”

“My eyes were starting to get a bit weaker especially when you are looking at digital screens,” added Martin when asked about his pacenote solution. “I surprised myself. I don’t believe it is the future, I still like pen and paper.”

While one Toyota fell away, another came to the fore as Rovanpera, who “couldn’t drive any faster” in his ill-handling GR Yaris leapfrogged team-mate Katsuta into a 0.1s lead, which he extended by a tenth on stage seven and then grew to one second on stage eight. His lead remained unchanged at the end of the day, but it was Ogier that the Finn now led after the Frenchman, who recovered from a hybrid issue, beat Rovanpera to the stage win by 3.2s. Ogier surged from fourth to second overall ahead of Katsuta and Tanak, while Sordo was 0.2s ahead of Neuville in fifth.

Evans's co-driver Martin forgot their pacenotes at a time control desk so had to revert to using a back-up on a phone during Friday afternoon

Photo by: Toyota Racing

Toyota managed to work some set-up solutions overnight, which Rovanpera emphatically displayed by blitzing Saturday’s opening test by 4.2s over Tanak, who also showed signs of driving around his issues. When Rovanpera was asked how he was able to find such pace, he simply said: “I just drive faster than the others.”

However, his rally was about to turn literally upside down in the next test. The reigning world champion missed his braking point, resulting in a collision with a tree that pitched his car into a roll before coming to rest on its side. Driver and co-driver Jonne Halttunen were unscathed and clambered out of the car only to be joined by WRC2 leaders Solberg and Elliott Edmondson. Distracted by the stricken GR Yaris Solberg subsequently made an error and rolled his Skoda at the next corner, ending his rally on the spot.

“This one was a bit of a confusion with the pacenotes at the previous place [in the stage] and Jonne read the notes wrong,” said Rovanpera. “That was not the reason for the crash but on the straight after I was maybe thinking about it a bit and I missed my braking.”

The battle for victory developed into a head-to-head between Ogier and Tanak after the impressive Katsuta exited from third when he damaged his rear suspension on a rock in stage 12. “I don’t know exactly what was there, and the car is strong enough as we survived the Safari, but for sure this kind of impact was a bit too much,” said Katsuta.

"Three rallies [this year], two wins and second place, it really isn’t that bad at all. The only not so bright side is the points [system] as it is not reflecting at all what we have achieved" Sebastien Ogier

Rovanpera’s exit helped Ogier into a 3.4s lead but that advantage evaporated in Amarante. The crews had expected rain but instead were greeted by blazing sunshine that wreaked havoc on the two hard/four soft tyre package everyone bar Evans selected.

Tanak threw everything at it, not knowing the limit of his i20 N, and his gutsy effort rewarded with a stage win and 0.2s rally lead. It was a short-lived advantage as Tanak suffered a cruel slow puncture in middle of stage 13, handing Ogier, who delivered a “big push”, a 13.6s lead.

The Ogier vs Tanak battle dominated the afternoon, with the latter seemingly at home in the rutted conditions. Fastest times on stages 14 and 15 applied pressure on Ogier as the gap reduced to 7.8s, but Ogier hinted that he wasn’t at his maximum, before revealing “Amarante [stage 16] will be an important one, we have to push”.

Ogier's charge on Saturday afternoon enabled him to create a timely gap to Tanak

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

As he has done throughout his career, Ogier duly delivered the perfect response, taking 4.1s out of Tanak, who was battling a throttle-mapping issue. Ogier extended his advantage again before conceding 1.9s in their side-by-side, head-to-head superspecial battle in front of a vociferous Lousada arena.

“It’s been a good day,” said Ogier. “On Toyota’s side it has not been perfect we have to try and finish the job.” An encouraged Tanak was left to rue what might have been had the puncture not stifled his surge. “I’m not sure we have the tools to match Toyota; I don’t think we did a bad job,” he said.

The superspecial was won by Fourmaux, who jumped to fourth overall, ahead of Sordo, who was instructed to back off to help Neuville to third. “Dani lost lots of time because I asked him to do so [to help Thierry into third],” said Hyundai team principal Cyril Abiteboul. “I think one thing that Dani is not great at is to know how much he needs to lose so there is margin for improvement there.”

After coming through Saturday’s intense battle, Ogier did indeed finish the job despite Portugal’s weather throwing the curveball of thick fog for Sunday morning’s stages. He successfully navigated the four remaining stages to take an emotional win that leaves him fifth in the standings despite his part-campaign.

“It think it is pretty clear that our race management was as close to perfect this weekend and that is what brought us to where we are,” said Ogier, whose joy was only dampened by the fact he scored one point less than Tanak [26 points] virtue of the WRC’s new point system. “Three rallies [this year], two wins and second place, it really isn’t that bad at all. The only not-so-bright side is the points [system] as it is not reflecting at all what we have achieved.”

A first podium of 2024 for Tanak ignited his title bid, moving to third in the championship ahead of Fourmaux, albeit 31 points adrift of Neuville. But he is most definitely now a factor after admitting he felt he had the pace to win had he avoided the puncture. “If you take 13 or 15 seconds off [for the puncture] then we were going to be there [challenging for the win],” said Tanak, who topped the Super Sunday classification and finished second on the Power Stage, adding 11 points to the 15 scored on Saturday.

Despite missing out on victory to Ogier, Tanak was still able to score the most points and move up to third in the standings

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

“Let’s see [about the championship]. Like in Croatia, everybody has still scored the same points. You can do whatever you want but it is like being in the Kindergarten [with this point system] and there is thumbs up for everyone and a ‘thanks for coming’.”

But it was Neuville who was the big winner, finishing third ahead of Fourmaux and Sordo. The Belgian was stunned to transform a six-point advantage to 24 points over Evans, who suffered final-day heartbreak.

“Nobody expected us to be on the podium here actually and to increase the lead in the championship was nearly impossible, but somehow we made it,” said Neuville, who benefited from 11 Super Sunday points for finishing second in the classification and winning the showpiece Fafe Power Stage in style. “It is quite a margin [in the championship] but you can see how easy it is to lose points with Elfyn having problems today.”

"You want to forget the weekend, but we have to learn from it and be ready for the next one. For sure, 24 points seems big now, but it can turn around very quickly" Elfyn Evans

Those problems being a broken radiator on stage 21 that forced him to engage EV mode, putting a rally finish at risk, before a successful roadside repair. The problem compounded a weekend to forget for the Welshman, who lost the chance to add any Sunday points to the six accrued on Saturday.

“The six points is the only positive,” he said. “Of course, you want to forget the weekend, but we have to learn from it and be ready for the next one. For sure, 24 points seems big now, but it can turn around very quickly.”

In Portugal, Ogier once again showed his enduring class and will be back for more in Sardinia, but it was Neuville who took a big stride towards winning the title fight.

Neuville rescued a healthy points haul to extend his championship lead over Evans

Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images