Ogier-Ingrassia winners at Monza and titles, Rossel champion in WRC3

Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia (Toyota) ne sont pas des épiciers. Rien ne les obligeait à imprimer un tempo d’enfer lors de la finale du Championnat du monde des rallyes (WRC) 2021 in Monza (Italy). Arriving 17 points ahead of their rivals Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin in the Hall of Speed, the chances of an eighth title were high.

But the French wanted to finish in style. So they attacked, even though the Gapençais tried hard to make the media microphones believe the opposite after each special. On numerous occasions, the controls of the event were exchanged between the French duo and their opponents from across the Channel.

However, the final bouquet experienced a twist in the penultimate special. Elfyn Evans hit a bale of straw, then stalled her engine twice. Behind by a handful of seconds, the Welshman was unable to catch up during the Power Stage. This Sunday, November 21, Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia not only won the Rally of Monza, but also their eighth crown!

# BREAKING Congratulations @SebOgier and Julien Ingrassia - 8x #WRC champions 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆#ToyotaGAZOORacing | @TGR_WRC | #Legend

- World Rally Championship (@OfficialWRC) November 21, 2021

The side of Hyundai Motorsport, on passera vite à autre chose. Andrea Adamo, sur ses terres, doit fulminer car jamais ses hommes n’ont été en mesure d’inquiéter le duo de tête. Trop offensif samedi matin, ce qui lui valut de tutoyer les rails de sécurité, Thierry Neuville (4th) never caught up with a much cleaner Dani Sordo (3rd).

Teemu Suninen, called to compensate Ott Tänak (retained for family reasons) hardly made up for the situation. The Finn learned the behavior of the i20 Coupe WRC on the job and was rarely transcendent, but has the merit of finishing in sixth place... behind Oliver Solberg (Hyundai), a rookie in Rally1 and fielded by 2C Compétition. Logical consequence: Toyota also secures the Manufacturers’ title.

The fight for runners-up was punctuated by a few ups and downs. Victim of a high-speed exit in the penultimate special, Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota, 7th) benefited from the work of his mechanics to repair an open left front suspension in just 15 minutes.

Confirmed within M-Sport Ford pour l’arrivée de la Puma hybride en 2022, Gus Greensmith se contente de la 8e place. Son équipier Adrien fourmaux, restarted thanks to the super rally rule following his roll in Stage 1, remained wise to rebuild his confidence.

In WRC2, the suspense was absent from the Saturday morning specials, where Marco Bulacia (Skoda) went off the road. Andreas Mikkelsen (Skoda) never made up for his delay due to a puncture and it was with complete peace of mind that Jari Huttunen (Ford) won. The Finn offers M-Sport its first class success since Gus Greensmith in Turkey in 2020. As Nikolay Gryazin (Skoda) is only entered in the Teams championship, even if he finishes in the general classification ahead of Jari Huttunen, he does not appear in the WRC2 Drivers table.

In WRC3, the special was still in progress at the time of publishing these lines. Yohan Rossel and Jacques-Julien Renucci (Citroën) had a perfect race until Saturday afternoon. Particularly sharp in the mountainous special stages of Lombardy, the Saintéloc Racing duo, supported by the AUTO Rookie Academyhebdo, slowed down once he reached the stages of the Monza circuit.

Carrying a lead of 22 seconds halfway through, the French regularly lost their margin over Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Maciej Szczepaniak (Skoda), more inspired on the winding special stages of the Autodromo Nazionale. Arriving in Italy on equal points, it was ultimately the Poles who held the lead before the final ES.

But an insane attack allowed the French to take the advantage at the last minute! Rossel-Renucci won the Power Stage ahead of the locals Crugnola-Ometto and climbed to 2nd place in the Rally standings behind the Italians, but ahead of Kajetanowicz-Szczepaniak.

2021 Monza Rally standings:

Driver Ranking:

Teams ranking:

WRC3 ranking:

Find the analysis of the WRC at Monza by our special correspondent in the next issue of AUTOhebdo, on sale Monday evening in digital version and Wednesday on newsstands.