WRC: Sebastien Ogier wins ADAC Rallye Deutschland
Sebastien Ogier (Volkswagen Motorsport) wins ADAC Rallye Deutschland, 9th round of World RallyChampionship. It is Ogier’s 30th world rally victory and second in Germany, after the 2011 triumph with Citroën.
Volkswagen Motorsport, as double world championship team, was missing out only victory in Germany, until now. Waiting is over and now they have tripled the reason for celebration, because Jari-Matti Latvala and Andreas Mikkelsen gained second and third spot at the podium.
The last day of the rally was easy for Ogier after blistering performance on Saturday. He started the day with 33.8s gap ahead Latvala and decided not to push and risk. But, that didn’t mean he wasn’t fast, because he won the penultimate special stage. On Power Stage, last test of the rally, Ogier was 6th. Fastest three drivers who got additional points are Jari-Matti Latvala, Kris Meeke and Dani Sordo. Two additional points improved the overall performance of Kris Meeke, who finished the rally on 12th place.
Hyundai drivers Dani Sordo and Thierry Neuville finished 4th and 5th respectively and helped their team to jump over Citroën and go to the 2nd place of manufacturer’s championship standings. M-Sport drivers Elfyn Evans and Ott Tanak finished 6th and 8th, between them is Mads Ostberg (Citroen). Hayden Paddon (Hyundai) finished 9th and behind him last year’s Junior WRC champion Stephane Lefebvre (Citroen) impressed in his first run with a World Rally Car.
In WRC2 class Czech driver Jan Kopecky in Škoda Motorsport’s Fabia R5 achieved a dominant win ahead of Eric Camilli in a Ford Fiesta R5 and Quentin Giordano in Citroen DS3 RRC. Winner of the Drive DMack Cup for the drivers with Ford Fiesta R2 cars is Belgian driver Ghislain de Mevius.
Next round of World Rally Championship is Coates Hire Rally Australia from 10th to 13th September. Sebastien Ogier is a dominant leader of championship with 207 points, ahead of teammates Latvala (114 points) and Mikkelsen (98 points). Mads Ostberg and Thiery Neuville are following the pack with 90 and 80 points respectively.
