Sebastien Ogier and Vincent Landais headed a Toyota one-two-three-four in the fifth round of the FIA World Rally Championship, powering their GR Yaris Rally1 to a comfortable 19.9 second victory over Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin, with Sami Pajari and Marko Salminen taking their fourth consecutive podium.
Ogier was delighted with his 68th career victory. “It’s been very enjoyable. We had a great car to drive again, and it was good fun, so well done to all the team. It was extremely close this weekend with my teammates, especially with Oliver. Shame we couldn’t all finish together, but we had to do what we had to do and nice to bring a new rally to the list of wins. It’s the way we want to battle – so close and on the limit. Much better than cruising a two-minute lead on a Sunday morning. Driving this car felt amazing this weekend.”
For Evans, who took a full house of the Super Sunday and Wolf Power Stage bonus points, second position propelled him into the championship lead. “It has been a solid weekend. It was a poor start and that put us out of the fight for the win. I have had mixed feelings. Congrats to Seb he has driven an exceptional weekend.”
The big drama from the Spanish island was Oliver Solberg crashing out of second position in the penultimate stage, explaining: “First pass this morning was quite wet and now it was much drier. I was too optimistic with this right hander that had a jump and we went into the armco unfortunately.”
Solberg started the stage with just 2.2 seconds between him and the rally lead after winning Sunday’s opening two stages.
Takamoto Katsuta ended fourth overall and slips to second in the championship standings by two points.
Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT battled all weekend with Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria once again heading the ‘Hyundai Cup’ inter-team battle ending fifth overall despite picking up a 10-second jump start penalty on the final stage.
Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe were at odds with their i20 N all weekend and did well to bring it home in sixth, ahead of Dani Sordo/Candido Carrera in the third entry.
Josh McErlean and Eoin Treacy finally had a clean weekend in their M-Sport Ford Puma. “Really satisfied. Enjoyed it a lot. We really needed a clean result. Thanks to the team, they stuck by us. It’s a good job. Portugal’s next, where we hopefully can find a good rhythm,” said the Irishman.
Yohan Rossel and Arnaud Dunand dominated WRC2 in their Lancia Ypsilon for the second rally in a row, taking eighth overall from Aljandro Cachon and Borja Rozada in their Toyota Spain entered GR Yaris.
“It is nice feeling to be honest. Thanks to my team they did a great job. There were no mistakes. Now it is time to go on gravel and win again also,” said Rossel.
Leo Rossel and Guillaume Mercoiret lost P2 on the penultimate stage when their Citroen C3 developed a transmission issue surrendering their position to Eric Camilli.
Read the full report in Motorsport Monday tomorrow.
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