OGIER WINS EMOTIONAL FIFTH TITLE
M-sport and ogier crowned as evans light sup wales
Elfyn Evans, M-sport and British rallying celebrated a history rewriting Wales Rally GB last week – but Malcolm Wilson is now working harder than ever to keep his squad in the frame for more success next season.
Evans became the first ever Welsh winner of Britain’s round of the World Rally Championship and the first Brit since Richard Burns in 2000. And M-sport doubled its world title tally in one afternoon, by lifting both the manufacturers’ and the drivers’ championship with Sebastien Ogier.
M-sport also becomes the first genuine privateer team to lift the world title, having developed and built the iesta WRC entirely at its Dovenby Hall base.
An emotional Wilson told MN: “It’s starting to sink in now and I’m starting to understand that it can’t get any better than this. You look back to when we won the two titles before, particularly the second one on Rally Ireland and it was messy. Marcus [Gronholm] crashed, we didn’t win the rally, but we got the title and that was OK. This time, it was everything and it was so, so special.
“Ott [Tanak] crossed the line and that was the manufacturers’, then Seb was next, that was the drivers’ and then Elfyn came and won our home round of the world championship. It couldn’t get any better than that. Everything was perfect, we got the triple crown on this one.”
Wilson admitted, however, that there was the odd moment of doubt on the final day in Wales.
“There was this reality check when somebody mentioned: ‘What if Elfyn doesn’t finish…’ everything we’d celebrated, Seb, the championship, was based around Elfyn finishing the rally. And then suddenly my head was going back to thinking about Poland [2009] and that last stage when JariMatti [Latvala] crashed and cost us the one-two. We were all banking on Elfyn winning. He didn’t let us down.”
Gronholm helped seal Wilson’s last success in 2007 and the Finn was quick to pay tribute to the Cumbrian’s commitment.
“I want to say congratulations to Malcolm,” said the two-time champion. “He deserves this. He has worked so hard for such a long time. I’m really happy for him.”
Despite double title success, the identity of M-sport’s driver line-up remains a mystery for next season.
“We’re getting there,” said Wilson, when asked about who would be driving his Ford Fiesta WRCS next year. “Like I’ve told you before, Sebastien wants to know we can keep developing the car. We’ve had fantastic pace on every rally this year, we’ve been on the podium on every event and we’re the only manufacturer to have three drivers winning in our cars, but there have been some stages where we haven’t been as quick as we should be. We need to find a way to continue to develop the car for next year and we will do that, but for now my priority and all my commitment is going towards keeping him.”
Wilson wants news on Ogier’s decision before he makes any further decisions, but Evans’ position in the team is safe for next year. The Welshman will drive the full championship on Michelins. The future for the DMACK World Rally Team remains unclear.
Teemu Suninen will also form part of the M-sport line-up, with the full extent of the Finn’s programme only known once Ogier’s decision is made. If Ogier does leave, he could contest the full series as partner to Evans.
Ogier admitted he was still deciding on his future, saying: “I’m sure some people have made the right guess or the right bet, but I’m not 100 per cent sure. I’m still thinking and still analysing. There’s still one offer from my wife and she is pushing pretty hard to keep me home. But I know I still need some adrenalin. Let’s see.”
Ogier’s fifth title makes him the second most successful driver in the history of the sport, he’s also just the third driver to take world titles with more than one manufacturer, Walter Rohrl and Juha Kankkunen being the others.
The Frenchman was unusually emotional at the end of the event, wiping away tears to talk passionately about his achievements with M-sport this season.
“I don’t understand where this came from,” Ogier told MN, “but the emotion was really strong in this moment.
“It was, for these minutes, it’s hard to explain and I don’t know why, but this was the strongest I have felt in this sport. Of course, not in my life, the birth of my son was even more special, but I was so happy that I am able to take this kind of feeling from this sport still. I feel so proud and so happy for what we have achieved with Malcolm and with M-sport.
“At the start of this year, we had to take this bet, we had to make this challenge with ourselves, but we did it and we succeeded. The guys at M-sport worked so hard, they did so much with the smaller budget than the manufacturers. What we achieved this year is amazing.”
Ogier also paid tribute to his rivals in the sport, rivals he says who have contributed to making this the most competitive season in his career.
“This has been the most competitive year I ever drove,” he said. “It’s been good to see so many winners, to have every team winning a minimum of two races, it’s so good. And it’s also been nice and really fun to be part of a series with these new cars, the fastest World Rally Cars ever. It’s incredibly enjoyable.”
It’s 17 years since your first Rally GB, Richard Burns won that one, what were you doing? “I was in a Volkswagen Polo, seeded at car 147 or something, with a guy called David Bateson. We retired in Resolfen, the stage was about 40 miles long or something like that, we got lost in there for three days or something! That’s that memory, but I grew up watching the RAC since I was four or five, watching the Group B cars come through Grizedale; I’ve lived it all my life. Today’s quite a day.”
When did you think you could win a rally? “Only this year really. We saw in Argentina that, if the conditions were right, we could do it. Elfyn’s come on so much in the last few years, you really felt this was possible.” What was the plan? “We just took it one stage at a time. But yesterday morning was really good and then the last stage before service, we had to manage the tyres and it would have been easy to lose a chunk of time and slip back into the fight.”
Has it sunk in? “No, not really. It was special to have my family at the end of the stage and so many people there, it was amazing.”
Did you feel that home support? “Yeah. I’m not Welsh, but I’ve felt like everybody’s taken me in and cheered us on here – it’s been amazing. I had a quick look up at Elfyn’s Corner and saw a lot of people, but there were a lot of people everywhere to be honest.”
Seventeen-year-old Kalle Rovanpera admitted the complexity of last week’s Wales Rally GB took him by surprise.
Making his WRC debut on Deeside, Rovanpera slid off the road on the second run of Myherin, filling the radiator with dirt which sent the engine temperature up. He retired after that stage, but returned on Saturday and Sunday in an effort to find a rhythm on roads with constantly changing grip levels.
Rovanpera told MN: “The rally was quite difficult, but also this car and these tyres were all quite new for me as well. It was getting better, but the first time through it was quite hard to see the places where the grip is. I have to take this experience and use it for next season.”
M-sport team principal Malcolm Wilson wondered if Rovanpera had suffered from the pressure of the pre-event hype. “There was so much talk about him before the rally,” said Wilson. “But then again it was a great story, so you could understand that. But he’s learned a lot.”
Rovanpera starts Rally Australia later this month in an M-sport Fiesta, but there is still no decision about where he will drive next season. There was speculation in Wales that he has signed for Skoda to replace Pontus Tidemand in 2018.