Why Ogier's WRC swansong was a season to savour

Sebastien Ogier underlined his place in World Rally Championship history with his eighth world title in his final full-time campaign, while the breathtaking generation of WRC machinery, introduced in 2017 and the most spectacular cars since the Group B era, delivered a memorable last blast through the world’s toughest stages.

These perhaps seminal WRC moments played out fittingly across a greatest-hits 12-round calendar, including long-awaited returns to the iconic Safari and Acropolis rallies, as normality threatened to return after last year’s COVID-induced shortened season. Add to that a titanic title fight between Toyota team-mates Ogier and Elfyn Evans that went down to the wire (including two of the closest battles in history), a crop of young stars making their mark, and plenty of drama in between – 2021 was a season to cherish.

After he’d won four of the first six rallies, the odds on an Ogier domination were short in the summer. But to borrow an old football cliche, it was very much a season of two halves. Ultimately the WRC trophy engraver was able to revert to muscle memory, but only after Ogier came through an intense Monza title decider that went down to the final powerstage.

The history books will forever show a vintage Ogier performance – he won five of the 12 events – while managing to score points at every round. A hallmark of the 37-year-old’s secret to previous successes was ever-present: the incredible ability of knowing when to push and when to concede and bank points.

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

This trait has rubbed off on team-mate Evans, who proved that last year’s narrow title defeat to Ogier was no fluke. Even in Ogier’s back yard at the Monte Carlo season opener, Evans threatened before being blown away by his team-mate, who recovered from a flat tyre to kick off the year with a record eighth success on the Monte’s twisting asphalt roads.

Despite losing time to a puncture, Ogier started the year with his traditional win on the Monte

Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images

The pair were back at it when Croatia’s asphalt stages made a WRC debut, following a subdued Arctic Rally Finland for the Toyota duo, which featured Ogier’s only on-stage blemish when he crashed into a snowbank. He lost several minutes, though still managed to salvage a point from the powerstage.

But Croatia offered a glimpse into the title race that would unfold. Lucky not to exit the rally on the final day after a road traffic accident, for which he incurred a suspended one-event ban, Ogier managed to overhaul Evans’s 3.9-second lead on the powerstage to win the rally by 0.6s, the third closest finish in history.

PLUS: How Ogier held on after a shock bump in the road to triumph in Croatia

The championship seemed a foregone conclusion in Ogier’s favour when Evans slipped 44 points adrift after a gearbox issue thwarted his Acropolis Rally victory hopes. But the final three events reignited the title race as Evans found another level

Evans fought back with a victory in Portugal after a Hyundai collapse, with Ogier down in third, but back-to-back wins in Sardinia and the attritional Safari put Ogier back in the box seat in the title race. This was helped by Evans retiring after hitting a rock on Kenya’s sandy stages, and Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville surrendering a likely win due to a rear-suspension failure on the final day.

The championship seemed a foregone conclusion in Ogier’s favour when Evans slipped 44 points adrift after a gearbox issue thwarted his Acropolis Rally victory hopes. But the final three events reignited the title race as Evans found another level, epitomised by a mesmerising drive to blitz the field at Rally Finland, where he became only the second British driver to win what is one of the WRC’s jewel-in-the-crown events.

PLUS: How joining Finland’s exclusive club was Evans' true WRC coming-of-age 

With Ogier engaging lead-protection mode, the gap dwindled to 17 points as Evans capitalised on the momentum, performing valiantly under intense pressure to finish second in Spain and take the title fight to a Monza decider.

A battle for the ages unfolded, with the lead changing hands six times between the pair, before Ogier, despite a brief scare when he clipped a barrier on the famous banking, came through to claim an emotional win and the title. He was not to be denied a fairytale finish in his final event as a full-timer and the last rally for his co-driver of 16 years, Julien Ingrassia.

Nine victories from 12 events emphasised Toyota’s dominance as former driver Jari-Matti Latavla, installed in place of Tommi Makinen, led the marque to a deserved drivers’ and constructors’ double in his first season of management.

A charging drive in Finland thrust Evans back into title contention, as the Welshman again took the fight to Ogier

Photo by: Toyota Racing

If Ogier or Evans hit trouble, the team could rely on its precocious young talent Kalle Rovanpera, who led the championship heading into Croatia before crashing out on the opening stage. The then 20-year-old bounced back impressively by becoming the championship’s youngest-ever winner in Estonia, before producing one of the drives of the season to utterly dominate the Acropolis. It’s only a matter of time before Rovanpera mounts a title challenge.

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Likewise, Toyota’s development driver Takamoto Katsuta emerged as the surprise package. He was the only driver to finish in the top six in each of the first six events, including a maiden podium in Kenya, where he followed Ogier home. But the Japanese’s season fell apart once he lost regular co-driver Daniel Barritt to injury in Estonia. This triggered a series of co-driver changes, crashes and even a withdrawal from the Acropolis due to his substitute co-driver Keaton Williams needing to attend a family emergency.

Toyota’s arch-rival Hyundai did its best job to throw away both championships through reliability issues. The South Korean marque possessed the fastest car, but its fragility proved to be its Achilles’ heel. Neuville and 2019 champion Ott Tanak bore the brunt of the misfortune. In another universe the pair could have found themselves easily at the forefront of their own Ogier versus Evans-style intra-team title battle had results gone their way.

Victory for Tanak in the Arctic in February was to be the highlight of his year before suspension failures took him out of commanding leads in Portugal and Sardinia, robbing him of likely wins. Neuville claimed a convincing victory on home soil in Belgium and then produced one of his finest drives to win in Spain in October, but by then it was all too late. Neuville too suffered suspension failures – in Portugal and on the Safari – while leading rallies. Add to that a power-steering failure in Greece, and the game was well and truly up.

Craig Breen added further proof of the i20’s strong pace in the third car he shared with Dani Sordo. He enjoyed his strongest WRC showing yet, claiming three podiums in five events, including second places in Estonia and Belgium. Sordo also produced solid drives to net three podiums, but in truth was outclassed by Breen - who earned himself a move to M-Sport on a full-time basis for 2022.

The i20’s fragility rendered Hyundai boss Andrea Adamo even more emotional than usual as he strove to fix the car’s faults, leaving him counting down the days until the 2022 season. But the charismatic Italian won't be at the helm next year, his unexpected departure announced earlier this month in what has been described as a 'mutual agreement'. He will be sorely missed by his team and the paddock.

Neuville was denied by suspension failure on the Safari, handing victory to Ogier

Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images

Even without its long-time leader, the only way for Hyundai is up next year, and one positive it can take from this season is that it may have found a talent to lead it long into the future in the form of Oliver Solberg. The son of 2003 WRC champion Petter Solberg started the year in WRC2 with the marque, but was promoted to the WRC car in the Arctic, where he finished an impressive seventh on his debut. He ended the year matching his experienced team-mates at Monza on his way to fifth in only his fourth outing. Solberg’s reward for this is to share the third factory car with Sordo in 2022.

PLUS: The steely determination behind the WRC’s Solberg 2.0 

While Toyota and Hyundai locked horns and filled all the podium places between them, there was a third player in the series: M-Sport Ford. Mindful of the WRC’s seismic shift in regulations for 2022, and its limited resources compared to its factory-backed rivals, the British squad’s expectations were reduced. Much of the focus was shifted to developing its Ford Puma to ensure that it can rejoin the battle with Toyota and Hyundai in 2022.

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M-Sport fielded a scaled-down effort of two Fiestas spearheaded by Gus Greensmith, who plotted all the rounds for a second year, alongside split WRC/WRC2 programmes for Adrien Fourmaux and Teemu Suninen. That roster didn’t last the season – Suninen left the team mid-season, frustrated by a lack of testing and switching between the WRC and WRC2 cars.

Fourmaux emerged as one of the surprise packages of 2021, highlighted by a fifth on his top-class debut in Croatia

High-profile rolls in the opening stages at the Monte Carlo Rally and in Sardinia also increased the pressure to perform in challenging circumstances. In a strange turn of events, Suninen ended the season with Hyundai, initially driving a WRC2 entry before finishing sixth at the Monza finale where he stood in for Tanak, who was absent for family reasons.

Suninen’s departure gifted more WRC seat time to Fourmaux, a meteoric rise to the top level for the inexperienced 26-year-old. The Frenchman emerged as one of the surprise packages of 2021, highlighted by a fifth on his top-class debut in Croatia. A fastest stage time emerged in Kenya alongside another fifth, behind fourth-placed Greensmith, who delivered consistency and the team’s best result of the season. While success was fleeting for M-Sport, next year promises much more, with optimism oozing from a camp that will return to three full-time entries, headed by new signing Breen.

PLUS: The rookie WRC driver aiming to continue Loeb and Ogier's legacies 

The fight for WRC2 honours was just as hard fought as its bigger brother, producing a season-long battle of the Norwegians between Andreas Mikkelsen (Skoda) and Mads Ostberg (Citroen). With both eager to return to the WRC’s top class, the battle was intense, and it was Mikkelsen who came out on top with three wins to Ostberg’s one.

Fourmaux earned plenty of plaudits in his first year in full WRC spec cars and has been heavily involved in testing M-Sport's new Puma

Photo by: M-Sport

Had Ostberg avoided the lion’s share of misfortune in punctures and mechanical issues, the fight wouldn’t have ended with a round to spare. But there was to be no denying Mikkelsen, who also dominated the European Rally Championship to ensure he ends the year with two titles, sending a clear message to WRC teams.

But it was Ogier who issued perhaps the most timely of reminders in staking a claim as the WRC’s best ever driver with his eighth world title. The championship will miss the 37-year-old when he moves into a part-time-driver role at Toyota in 2022 as the WRC heads into new pastures. What is certain is that there will be a different name on the WRC trophy next year, but Ogier will be a hard act to follow.

PLUS: How Ogier emerged out of Loeb's shadow to form his own WRC legend 

Ogier produced some of his best performances, including in Croatia, in his final full-time season to clinch title number eight

Photo by: Toyota Racing