OGIER AND CITROEN BACK ON TOP
The french champion marked his team switch with a classy victory
Sebastien Ogier put his head back and yelled. Yelled. What did he shout? He doesn’t remember. It doesn’t matter. The words weren’t important. It was a release. A physical act. A celebration.
Now nobody in the 108-year history of this event he adores is more successful than him; he sits on seven wins, level with countryman Sebastien Loeb. On an event which marked Loeb’s first outing with a factory team other than Citroen, Ogier’s success brings up a 100th World Rally Championship win for the French firm. The irony wasn’t lost on anybody that Loeb had dug the foundations for Citroen’s success in Versailles, scoring 79 of those 100 wins.
Loeb is history as far as Citroen’s concerned. Ogier’s the future. At least for the next two years.
But it was the here and now of round one that presented Ogier with his biggest headache. Starting the Monte in a third different car in four years would give him another significant challenge.
As had been the case a couple of years ago when he started out with M-sport, Ogier was short on mileage in the C3 WRC. Ahead of the rally, he was happy to sidestep at least some of a spotlight that picked out Ott Tanak and his Toyota as favourite and Loeb’s swashbuckling story that carried him from the podium on the Dakar Rally in Peru to a new chapter of his career in less than a week.
“Maybe,” said Ogier quietly, “there are not so many people betting on me.”
If the odds were long, he shortened them considerably on Thursday morning. First in line for shakedown, Ogier fired the Citroen into a two-mile test and laid down a marker. Out of the box, run one, nobody could come within 2.6s of him. Talking to him straight after, he pointed out that shakedown counts for nothing. In physical terms, he’s absolutely right. Psychologically, it was a solid first punch. One that would be countered beautifully an hour or so later by a fellow first-timer: Kris Meeke in his Toyota Yaris WRC, who set the final benchmark.
As the crews headed into the mountains for the first time, it was Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville who found himself centre of attention. After a prolonged dry period in the southern Alps, snow fell 24 hours earlier, transforming some of the stages hours after the crews had completed their recce.
Stage one was, for example, packed with plenty of snow on Wednesday night. A day on? Who knew? The sun had been out and anything facing south would surely have melted. But, with darkness, came plummeting temperatures. Another question: the stuff that’s melted, how much of that’s frozen?
Studs with a couple of soft slicks in the boot: That was the only sensible option. Everybody went with it. Everybody except Neuville. He went with two super soft slicks crossed diagonally with a pair of Michelin’s Pilot Alpin 41 CL studs.
As sure as everybody was of the snow and ice in SS1, Neuville was just as confident of a largely dry second test.
The Belgian’s Hyundai was 26.8 seconds down on Tanak’s benchmark opener. Now for two… Thierry pulled 11s out of everybody and went to bed third, just behind Ogier and early leader Tanak.
Arriving back in Gap just before 2200hrs on Thursday, Ogier smiled thinly.
“That choice [of Neuville],” he said, with a pause, “that took balls.”
Neuville eased his way into the lead on Friday morning, making the most of a rather fortuitous cancelled stage (read on for details of how Tommi Makinen vented his spleen at the FIA and Automobile Club de Monaco) and when Tanak stopped to change a puncture on SS7, this year’s Monte became a two-horse race with Ogier and Neuville more than a minute ahead of everybody.
One stage earlier, Neuville’s heart had been in his mouth. Not having driven the i20 on studs on dry asphalt, he turned into the first left-hander and… nothing. The studs offered zero grip. With quick thinking and some amount of good fortune, Neuville bailed and shot down a perfectly placed escape road. He lost 20s, and all the momentum. His tyre choice had been geared towards that stage.
He declined congratulations at containing the time loss to Ogier to just two seconds.
“We could have been 17s or 18s ahead,” he said. “Now he definitely has better tyres for the next one.”
He wasn’t wrong; he’d seen the last of the lead. Ogier hit the front on stage seven and stayed there.
From Saturday morning, everything was stacked in Ogier’s favour – including the roads. This first day of the first WRC weekend of 2019 would undoubtedly be Seb’s favourite. With the opening test done, the crews return to the N85 for a liaison section running down the Route Napoleon – a road, as the name would suggest, of significant national importance. A bit further south and thoughts of France’s foremost military genius were set aside in favour of the D14 and a trip through Forest-saint-julien, population 302.
“This is where I came from,” said Ogier. “Going through my village on this road section is such a special feeling.”
The leader of the Monte Carlo Rally had selected a very special place to stop and change his tyres for the next stage.
“I did it outside my ex-neighbour’s front door,” Ogier toldmn. “That made him smile. You know this place is a small place without much happening. For me to come to where I am from makes me really proud and it’s always quite humbling for me to go back.”
Posters of Ogier and co-driver Julien Ingrassia hung from walls of houses as the locals waged a propaganda war on everybody else on the entry list. The atmosphere in the place is a highlight for neutrals, if a touch intimidating for their rivals.
Across the four stages through ‘his valley’, Ogier gained 2.3s over Neuville. Heading south for Monaco and a final day including the now traditional brace of runs over Cols de Turini and Braus, Ogier was 4.3s ahead.
“It’s intense,” said Ogier. “But if the weather stays dry, our car should be good on the stages in the Maritimes.”
Neuville fronted up. He’d given it everything. “I couldn’t go quicker,” he said.
What Ogier wasn’t telling the world was that he had a much deeper concern. In the closing kilometres of the last stage, he’d noticed his Citroen pushing on when he came off the throttle. He said nothing. For now.
Just after 0600hrs on Sunday morning, Ogier slotted his C3 in alongside Neuville’s Hyundai. The pair had 15 minutes to decide on their final tyre choice of the event. When they headed inland they would be faced with two runs of two stages on the same boots.
Out of the car, Ogier clamped his phone to the side of his head. Neuville watched on, arms folded. Outwardly, this looked like more psychology, leaving Thierry wondering what his rival was talking about. What did he know? What was he finding out? The tentative Citroen-bound glances kept coming. Little did we know at the time, Ogier was struggling to make his car work properly.
“It was a real stress,” said team principal Pierre Budar, from the team’s Monaco base in the Novotel. “We could take no data from the car. We could do nothing. All we could do was advise over the phone.”
When he came off the throttle, the pedal was returning to 20 per cent rather than zero.
“I adjusted the pedal as much as I could,” Ogier said. “I lifted the pedal to rest at about 10 per cent. It wasn’t perfect, but it gave mea chance to fight in the powerstage.”
Fortunately he’d kept his lead ahead of the last test. Unfortunately for him, Neuville had closed to 0.4s.
Incredibly, in a new car (admittedly one that’s probably at its raciest on these roads in these conditions) that wasn’t working properly, Ogier brought it home.
“The relief was incredible,” he said. “That’s where the emotion was coming from. When I went to the last stage, I didn’t know what would happen. We know now it’s a sensor that’s gone crazy, but I didn’t know if the thing would break completely.
“The 100th win for Citroen and me being only the second person to win this event with four different manufacturers [don’t forget his Peugeot, IRC win in 2009] is all good. But these are symbols; the icing on the cake.” The cake? Maximum points. “I needed that win to start the season,” he said. And he said it in a way that he knows there’s plenty of work to be done in the weeks ahead. The Citroen’s not as capable as his Ford Fiesta of the previous two years. Worse still, it’s Sweden – a rally which regularly crucifies the first-on-theroad championship leader – next. Ogier raised eyes at the memory of his badtempered bete noire of 12 months ago.
Don’t remind me to that,” he said. me enjoy this one before I have think about that.” Ogier didn’t particularly want to reminded of the Toyota challenge either. Third, fifth and sixth for Tanak, Jari-matti Latvala and Meeke demonstrated consistency, but it was searing weekend speed that really worried Ogier and Neuville. And there was a sublime powerstage performance, which left Meeke 3.9s faster than anybody. And, don’t forget, the scrap was massive for win and for third. Everybody pushing, everybody was giving everything and yet Meeke still went almost half a second per mile faster than anybody. Which begs the question of Toyota dropped this one? In a nutshell, it brought the wrong rims. lightweight wheels cracked crumbled causing punctures Tanak and Meeke.
Makinen explained: “For the last two years, these wheels have worked – but there’s been more snow and when the snow is at the side of the road you can’t cut the corner. The drivers had to cut the corners and this was problem.”
Back to Makinen’s frustration at the loss of the first run through the Valdrome test on Saturday morning. Thousands of fans had packed the final mile or so of the stage, forcing its cancellation.
Packed with snow and ice, most teams had gone with four studs for the stage, except Hyundai. Neuville had three studs and Loeb two. Dropping the opener from the loop was a big bonus, allowing Ogier to exploit his slickbiased tyre package.
Makinen ranted: “All three stages should have been cancelled. Our complete strategy was based to the overall loop – we lost our [Tanak’s] lead and nobody takes responsibility for that. The FIA doesn’t care what happens at the end of the season, what happens if we lose the championship because of this?”
FIA rally director Yves Matton labelled those comments as unprofessional and aggressive. He was backed up by a visiting president Jean Todt. But as the three sat to talk things through, the Finn declined the opportunity to back down.
Makinen’s frustrations would, no doubt, be offset by the unrelenting speed the cars had shown once they got onto a more stable footing. Meeke’s debut pace came in for the most praise.
“Absolutely brilliant,” was Makinen’s description. But Tanak’s run of six fastest times to rocket him back onto the podium was deeply impressive.
Talking of deeply impressive, one word: Loeb. Asked to summarise his new driver’s performance, Hyundai’s new team principal Andrea Adamo didn’t take long. “I need only one word: amazing!” He called that right. Fastest on two of the 15 stages, the Alsatian shunned a lack of experience of his Hyundai and employed a serious caffeine intake in an attempt to offset the ravages of jet-lag. Regardless of which continent his body clock was residing on, Loeb’s pace and performance was superb. Ultimately – and predictably – he was disappointed not to have clung to third and the podium, but he’d done his job and delivered points and his new employer to an early lead in the makes’ race.
Beyond that, he’d delivered an exceptional story line in what’s already shaping up to be a blockbuster of a championship. In scenes reminiscent of the WRC’S first appearance in his home town of Haguenau nine years ago, Loeb rule looked to have returned – even in Ogier’s backyard. The pre-event autograph session was beyond even the significant effort of Hyundai’s private security firm. In the end, Loeb’s celebrated co-driver Daniel Elena had to take control.
He jumped up onto a table and shouted at the crowd to stop pushing and sort themselves out.
They fell into line. Briefly. But mass hysteria followed the Sebs everywhere last week. Fourth was a frustration for Loeb, but once he’s found his feet and tested for more than a day and a half, he’ll have an even bigger part to play.
“We’re here at the end,” said Loeb. “It’s OK, but I was pushing and we weren’t very quick. We have to understand. I test for Sweden next week. I drove nearly every day in January and I’m happy to stop now. Now I’m going to sleep.”
Rally Sweden, round two… what a way to wake up.