World Rally Championship: The title fight comes to a head 🎥
HUSARENSTÜCK VON OGIER Sébastien Ogier celebrated his fifth victory at the Wales Rally GB. With two WRC rounds to go, the defending champion, who is switching from Ford to Citroën in 2019, is now separated by just seven points from Belgian Thierry Neuville on Hyundai. On the first stage, Sébastien Ogier's hopes of winning the British WRC round in Wales faded. [...]
Sébastien Ogier's hopes of winning the British WRC round in Wales faded on the first stage. The transmission of his Ford Fiesta WRC failed in first and second gear and the defending champion dropped back to eighth position as a result of the time lost.
Meanwhile, Ott Tänak appeared to be cruising towards his fourth successive triumph after wins in Finland, Germany and Turkey. The Estonian extended his lead to 40 seconds on Saturday when a radiator failure on his Toyota Yaris WRC forced him to retire.
One Ford in front of two Toyota
Ogier had worked his way up to second place by then in difficult conditions with some very muddy gravel stages. Tänak's retirement put the world champion in the lead. This was then disputed by the second-best Toyota driver to date, Jari-Matti Latvala, who set the fastest time on the Power Stage on Sunday morning.
The Frenchman and his co-driver Julien Ingrassia hit back straight away and eventually won by 10.6 seconds over the Finns Latvala/Anttila. Third place went to two-time overall Valais winner Esapekka Lappi in the third Toyota.
Ogier's last meters on the spectator stage in Llandudno and the finish shows the following short video:
#WRC - A small recap of what happened during sunday's stages of @WalesRallyGB 🇬🇧⬇ pic.twitter.com/ro1PD6UxfU
- FIA (@fia) October 7, 2018
Three-way fight for the world championship title
Ogier thus celebrated his 44th victory in the WRC and fifth in Great Britain, something no one before him has ever achieved.
Behind Craig Breen on Citroën DS3 WRC, Thierry Neuville in the Hyundai i20 Coupé WRC finished fifth. The Belgian had landed in a ditch on the second day but was freed by the spectators.
Neuville still leads the world championship with 189 points, ahead of Ogier with 182 and Tänak with 168. The final two rounds will be held in Spain from October 25 to 28 and in Australia from November 15 to 18.
Ogier returns to Citroën
German-speaking Neuville and also Tänak have never been world champions, while Ogier is aiming for his sixth consecutive WRC title. It is already clear that he will switch from Ford M-Sport to the Citroën World Rally Team in 2019, with which Ogier began his career.
