Inside Rally

Sebastien Ogier and Volkswagen take their 2nd WRC win on only their 3rd ever WRC rally On Rally Mexico.

With no Loeb, the new Sebastien took charge and totally dominated the event, and won Rally Mexico by over 3 minutes. The only real contender over the weekend of the rally was Qatar M-Sport driver Mads Ostberg. Who while within 41 seconds of Ogier, suffered a broken clutch and put him out of the rally on stage 15. It opened the gap to 3 minutes on saturday, and Ogier was able to sail to victory.

At the post event conference, Ogier said “For sure, I am very pleased. It has been a perfect weekend for us. The car was perfect again and I thank the team again for that. They are doing a really good job. From the start of the season we have had no problems with the car. We know we have a few things to improve but I have had so much fun. I have really enjoyed the rally in Mexico with all the support and we have a good lead after three races.”

In 2nd place was Citroen’s Mikko Hirvonen.”I am happy, at last, to get a second place after a difficult start to the season. It looks like Volkswagen has raised the game and we have to fight hard. We have to work even harder now, I am sure we can improve everything. I am still sliding a little too much and losing time. Without the power with the altitude you lose even more time like this.”

In 3rd place, Claiming his frist ever podium, was Qatar M-Sport Driver Thierry Neuville. Very pleased with his best WRC performance yet, he said, “Honestly, I have to say I felt confident in the car and, after qualifying, I thought we could find the pace and be competitive. On Saturday I was not so happy and I made a little mistake and a rock broke the steering and we had to slow down. Then we had problems with the temperature and we slowed down again. But we went fast again and it was a good experience today. Malcolm [Wilson] told me to push and I tried hard until 15 kilometres where we were equal [with Mikko]. Then I made a mistake and I knew we must just finish the day for the team.”

Results After the first two Stages of Rally Mexico on Thursday night after the Ceremonial Start in the streets of Leon.

Results

Sébastien Ogier
Mads Østberg +0.3
Thierry Neuville +0.6
Mikko Hirvonen +1.1
Daniel Sordo +1.4
Chris Atkinson +2.4
Nasser Al-Attiyah +4.1
Evgeny Novikov +5.3
Jari-Matti Latvala +6.4
Benito Guerra +7.1
Michal Kosciuszko +10.7
Ken Block +11.2
Martin Prokop +11.3

Citroen’s number 1, Mikko Hirvonen went fastest through the 6.27km Qualifying Stage for Rally Mexico with a time of 3 minutes 57.2. He will get first pick for road position for Day 1 of the Rally.

Mikko Hirvonen 3:57.2
Evgeny Novikov 3:57.9
Mads Østberg 4:00.4
Thierry Neuville 4:00.4
Sébastien Ogier 4:01.1
Dani Sordo 4:01.2
Jari-Matti Latvala 4:01.5
Nasser Al-Attiyah 4:01.6
Chris Atkinson 4:01.6
Ken Block 4:06.6
Benito Guerra 4:09.4
Martin Prokop 4:12.2
Michal Kosciuszko 4:14.2

Today (Tuesday 5th March) at the Geneva Motorshow. Hyundai Motorsport revealed its latest specification i20 WRC.

Hyundai say they will compete in next year’s World Rally Championship and the i20 WRC will begin testing in the second half of this year.

Team principal Michel Nandan explained to Autosport, the changes to the new car were largely on the outside of the i20 WRC.

“This latest version of the i20 WRC has centred on aerodynamics with the objective of improving the car’s cooling systems,” he said.

“A new rear wing and front spoiler give the i20 WRC a new external appearance while, under the bodywork, improvements have also been made to the suspension kinematics and chassis stiffness as we gear up for a more structured test programme later in the year. We have lots of important foundations to lay both with the car and the team at Alzenau.”

He admitted that building the team and Alzena facility while simultaneously developing the car was a challenge.

“Building up a new motorsport facility from scratch is an ambitious and rewarding challenge,” Nandan said.

“We have begun the recruitment process but already have a number of key people in place who bring with them a wealth of rally and motorsport experience.

“We are rapidly building up the team infrastructure and are pleased that everything is running to schedule.”

Nandan warned that expectations for Hyundai should remain low at first.

“We are still in the infancy of our exciting WRC programme so the development curve for the car and team is steep,” he underlined.