Olbia (Italy) (AFP)
Sébastien Ogier (Toyota) struck a big blow by winning Sunday the rally of Sardinia, in front of his teammate Elfyn Evans and Thierry Neuville (Hyundai), after a week where he showed, once again, the mastery of a seven-time world champion.
The Welshman, never in the game for victory, was again a big fright in the last ford of the final Power Stage, which he approached too quickly and where his engine, drowned, stalled then took long seconds. to restart.
But he finally saved his second place and the one-two Toyota.
Thanks to this 52nd WRC victory, including four in Sardinia, the seven-time French world champion, who took the lead on Saturday after Ott Tänak (Hyundai) had stopped in SS12, further widened the gap on Evans in the championship. : 106 points to 95, or 11 points ahead of his young teammate.
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"It was an incredible weekend! We did a good job during our test (before the rally), the car worked much better than in Portugal. We had a great day on Friday and yesterday (Saturday) we even had managed to take the lead. It's very good for the championship. Thank you to the team! ", reacted Ogier on his Twitter account.
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It was Friday that he built a win he didn't really believe in.
Forced to sweep the track as the leader of the championship, which has happened to him very often, he made no mistakes and above all lost a minimum of time on Tänak who was walking in the lead: 36 seconds in the first eight special.
- Amazed Latvala -
On very tricky tracks, strewn with pebbles, lined with rocks and ditches, Maître Ogier patiently waited for incidents to strike the Hyundai drivers, as in Portugal.
They arrived on Saturday in the space of a few hours, for Tänak in SS12, then for Dani Sordo in SS15, while he was well clinging to second place.
For similar reasons, a deviation from the trajectory sanctioned by a collision against a rock for the Estonian, another concluded with a wheel in the ditch causing a half roll for the Spaniard, known for his consistency.
"There is not much positive to take away from this weekend", summarized Sordo, who like Neuville was not confident in his car.
To prepare for the Safari Rally's big comeback to the world calendar at the end of June in Kenya, Hyundai had started to modify a lot of things on the official i20s, especially in terms of the suspensions.
This was not favorable to Neuville or Sordo who fought all weekend with feelings that did not suit them.
"We must congratulate the whole team, because we have a very fast car. We just have to make it more reliable and make fewer mistakes", tempered Tänak, 2019 world champion, at Toyota, and really not successful this spring.
The Estonian will find it difficult to reverse the current trend, which is very favorable to Ogier, but he is capable of it, as he is one of the most gifted of his generation.
He will have to make a clear cut against Ogier, 37, more than ever the boss of the WRC, and in the current best team, led by his former teammate at VW, Jari-Matti Latvala.
"I saw on Thursday that Seb was very motivated", already said Latvala, Friday evening, amazed by the Frenchman's first perfect day in Sardinia.
"He can really win this rally," he added, and he was right.
The next big meeting of the WRC will take place in Kenya, from June 24 to 27.
It will be the return of the Safari Rally, absent from the calendar for 19 years, and all the drivers will be on an equal footing, not knowing the unprecedented route, north-west of Nairobi.
© 2021 AFP