FULL REVIEW OF THE EPIC WRC SEASON

Thefrenchandthebritishcombinetoclaimglory. Bydavidevans

T wo questions. Boiled down, that’s what this year’s World Rally Championship came down to. Just two questions. The first is the obvious one: how did the fledgling partnership of Sebastien Ogier and M-sport dominate both titles? The second is possibly even more straightforward: how did Thierry Neuville miss out?

We’re all very well aware just how statistics can be caressed to make any case compelling. These numbers speak for themselves; if Neuville had managed just four more fastest times this season he’d have won twice as many stages as anybody else in 2018. Twice. As. Many. As it is, Neuville posted 56 scratch times, with Ott Tanak next up on 30. Admittedly, the Belgian’s still got some way to go before he matches the height of Ogier’s dominance – the Frenchman won 110 stages in 2013. That was just the 79 more than his nearest rival!

Neuville’s speed wasn’t all about the single stages, he led rallies for longer than anybody else this year. And he won twice the number of events. How didn’t he win? Actually, let’s start the piece on a positive note. Let’s answer question one.

It’s hard to imagine Ogier reading American theology. If he did, he definitely took a long look at Reinhold Niebuhr’s work. He said: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”

In a nutshell, that’s how Ogier won a fifth straight title. Thrown the bendiest of curved balls at the end of the 2016 season, the Frenchman quickly established what his options were for this year. He picked M-sport, did a deal with the Cumbrians, went on holiday and came to the Monte fresh and ready to rock.

Naturally, Ogier didn’t feel as comfortable with the Fiesta WRC as he would have done with the 2017spec Polo in which he’d put down so many testing miles in the previous year, but he didn’t stress. He took a sensible line and drove at his own pace. He dropped the car into a ditch just outside Agnieres en Devoluy on Rally Monte Carlo and was, by his own admission, fortunate to make it out. But make it out he did. He might have dropped from second to eighth, but he was still in it. And, as his confidence with the new car grew, he was back to second by the end of the day. With one stage remaining on Saturday, he was 51 seconds behind Neuville. He was content. A podium would do on his debut.

Neuville hit a bridge in Breziers, Ogier didn’t. Neuville retired. Ogier won.

Round two, Sweden and Ogier’s struggling to find a set-up he’s comfortable with in the snow, but he’s there or thereabouts and ends the weekend on the podium’s bottom step. Neuville is ferociously fast and looking towards another big lead on Saturday night.

Neuville hit a barrier in the Karlstad superspecial, Ogier didn’t. Neuville retired. Ogier was third.

When Neuville got on the plane to head east for round three in Mexico, he should have been at the head of the table. Instead he was already 36 points behind Ogier. At that point, the defending champion knew two things, he knew Neuville was very, very fast. But he also knew he’d laid the best foundations possible for himself. Eclipsing his 2013 PB of nine wins wasn’t going to happen, what was needed was consistency; keep the points coming, keep his nose in front and keep the pressure on his rivals. That’s what he did. On the podium on six of the first eight rounds, he still took good points in Argentina and Sardinia where he was fourth and fifth respectively.

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By the time the championship arrived in Finland Ogier was, however, moving more onto the back foot. He suffered a sizeable shunt in testing and was facing a rival in Neuville who was absolutely flying. The i20 Coupe WRC hit the podium in Mexico, then won in Corsica and Argentina. Second, third and first in Portugal, Sardinia and Poland left Neuville just 11 points down on Ogier in Jyvaskyla.

And then, incredibly, the Gap superstar crashed for the second time in as many weeks. And this time it hurt. Sideways into a tree in Jukojarvi, the pair were hospitalised with co-driver Julien Ingrassia being told he wouldn’t be allowed to restart after suffering concussion.

Following thatfourth stage, Neuville was ninth, but only 19s off the front.

Undoubtedly, the top two in the championship went to their respective rooms that Friday night doing the sums. If Thierry found the speed to turn this into the perfect score, he would turn onto the season’s home straight 19 points clear of Ogier. Nobody in the current generation of the sport had overturned that kind of gap with four rallies remaining.

Neuville held the championship in the palm of his hand in Jyvaskyla. What could he do?

There was nothing Ogier could do. The frustration was writ large across his face. He’d stepped aside and left his goal undefended.

The only weapon that remained in Ogier’s arsenal in Finland was the psychological one. He used it. In the absence of the #1 Fiesta, Neuville ran first on the road on Friday afternoon. Ogier saw his opportunity.

“Now he (Neuville) realises what is first on the road,” said Ogier. “There are not so many people who have seen that. Since years I have done this job, and people like him, who have never done [it] often say: ‘Ah, it’s not so much, Ogier’s complaining too much’. But now I see what he does when it’s tough and it’s nothing really impressive.”

Did it work? It’s impossible to say. But something unsettled Neuville. He was awful on the season’s fastest rally. In the end he managed sixth and 11 points, leaving him and his rival dead level.

Neuville tried to spin it. “We were clever,” he reckoned at the Finnish finish. Nobody was buying that.

And that was as close as Neuville would get. Cutting a Panzerplatte left-hander deeper than anybody else cut the left-rear wheel from the Hyundai. Retirement. Disaster. Even bigger disaster when he failed to pick up a single point after returning for Sunday’s powerstage.

Advantage Seb. Seventeen points clear, three to go. Spain. Ogier second on the rally, third on the powerstage. Neuville no-scores. Rattled by hydraulic problems he pushed a fraction too hard in Santa Marina on the final day. Too hot through a left-hander, he ran wide and dropped into the gutter on the following right, getting back on the road cost him the right-front. He ended the stage in a cloud of Michelin smoke. Mathematically, anything was still possible. But when he stepped from the Hyundai, he knew he’d just seen his 2017 title shot go up in smoke.

Question two? Neuville tried too hard this year. Take the Monte incident as a standalone example. He was comfortably ahead when they went into Breziers. But, that was the first stage that would be almost completely dry asphalt. Neuville knew, everybody knew, that would be the first stretch of road to offer a real insight into who’d got what for the rest of the season. It was an almost level playing field. And Neuville didn’t just want to beat Ogier, he wanted to trounce him. He could probably argue that he was really unlucky, running off the road by an inch or two and whacking a concrete parapet. But he didn’t need to be pushing so hard.

DRIVER

Sebastienogier(fra) Thierry Neuville (BEL) Ott Tanak (EST) Jari-matti Latvala (FIN) Elfyn Evans (GBR)