Sebastien Ogier won his ninth WRC title in Saudia Arabia and Vincent Landais his first title after finishing third overall in the inaugural WRC Saudi Arabia.
The two title contenders elected to tackle the three-stage day with only one spare tyre each. The opening test saw Ogier and Elfyn Evans separated by just a tenth of a second but on the penultimate stage, the longest of the rally at 33.28km, Ogier attacked, putting matters to rest barring any unforeseen issues in the final stage.
Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe headed a Hyundai one-two on the overall Saudi scoreboard after Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria received a one-minute penalty for clocking into a control a minute early, which dropped them to fourth position before staging a fast comeback to second.
The overnight leaders, Martins Sesks and Renars Francis dropped to second in the day’s opening stage after an overcautious opening run but in SS16, they suffered two punctures are retired before the final stage.
Sami Pajari and Marko Salminen ended fourth, ahead of Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston who rolled in the second-last stage, but the Japanese star was able to continue.
Evans had to settle for his fifth runner-up championship finish after ending sixth overall, with Kalle Rovanperä ending his final WRC event in seventh.
Gregoire Munster, Josh McErlean and Oliver Solberg rounded out the top ten.
Read the full story in Motorsport Monday tomorrow.
Discussion about this post