Dealer
Ogier talks Turkey
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Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia won Rally Turkey today and in doing so have closed the gap at the top of the FIA World Rally Championship for Drivers’ and Co-drivers’ to just 17 points, as the series heads to Wales Rally GB (3-6 October).
While championship leaders Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Toyota Yaris WRC) and title challengers Thierry Neuville/Nicolas Gilsoul (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) both had a bit of a nightmare on the rocky roads of Turkey, Ogier/Ingrassia reigned supreme in their Citroën C3 WRC, finishing 34.7 seconds ahead of long time leaders and team-mates Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm.
With three rounds and 90 points still available, Tänak still leads the series on 210 points, with Ogier second on 193 and Neuville third on 180. Only one of these three drivers will be crowned world champion this year.
This is what Ogier had to say at the Rally Turkey post-event press conference.
Seb, congratulations, you wanted points on the board this weekend and you certainly got them. How satisfied are you now that Rally Turkey is complete? “Actually, I did it just for you guys! You asked me this morning and said it would be great for the championship. Obviously there were still 40km to go. The Power Stage was very rough and a lot of rocks and you never know what can happen. It feels really good. It was much needed for the championship fight. We were quite behind Ott and it is nice to come back a bit closer. We are still quite some points behind him but still alive. Rally GB coming up next is a rally I like. It suits me very well, so I hope I can carry on and continue to put pressure on him.
Tyre strategy came into it very much so. Was that unexpected for Turkey, maybe? “Yes, quite unexpected. It’s so hot here… Maybe you don’t believe that you can use medium tyres. I don’t know why. It started from the beginning of the rally on Friday. There was some rain and we started to use some medium. We thought “maybe it was wrong”. Friday night, I had a long check of my in-boards to see how many kilometres we had on the very rough and how many on more loose to see if it was possible to use them on Saturday morning. I tried to go on the medium. That was one of the key moments for us and we managed to make a very good time. The closest were our team-mates. There was no fight between us. They have done a great rally. I would love to fight with him [Esapekka Lappi]. Maybe in the future, we’ll fight for the title together. Maybe next year. It was nice to have the back-up and great to have a one-two for the team. It was very needed also.
Everyone had big frowns on their faces after Germany. How much has this turned the team morale around? “I think, not many changes have happened in these three weeks, to be honest. After Germany, I had a discussion with the team and I said that it is at this moment that we need to stay strong together, work even harder. The team has started to do more and realised that we need to make a bigger push. This weekend is not the result of that yet, but it is coming in the right direction to motivate everyone even more. We can enjoy this one now.”
Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia wear Stilo WRC DES Zero 8860 helmets.
