WRC – Ogier takes victory in Sardinia

Sébastien Ogier won for the second time in a row at the Rally of Sardinia and thus achieved its fourth victory of the season in six events, also offering the tenth consecutive success for Volkswagen! The leader of the Championship signs his 20th victory in the discipline and thus beats Markku Alén to rise to the level of Didier Auriol. The reigning world champion took advantage of his significant lead to slow down during the last stage and let his opponents fight for the places of honor and increase his lead over Jari-Matti Latvala to 33 points. The Finn had a great opportunity to take first place after that obtained in Argentina but the Scandinavian only reached the last step of the podium following his puncture the day before.

Jari-Matti Latvala fought until the finish of the Italian event with Mads Ostberg who took a convincing second place for Citroën. The Norwegian resisted the return of the Volkswagen driver by beating him by around ten seconds at the end of the Power Stage won by Andreas Mikkelsen. The latter took fourth place ahead of Ekfyn Evans and Martin Prokop. Henning Solberg retained seventh place ahead of Robert Kubica who could hope for a top five finish before losing a wheel at the end of the second stage.

Lorenzo Bertelli finished ninth ahead of Khalid Al Qassimi and took victory and the lead in WRC2 at home by winning ahead of the Citroën DS3 R5 of Sébastien Chardonnet. Bernardo Sousa completes the category podium.

The videos of the event can be viewed on this link.

Discover the analysis of the Sardinia Rally carried out by our special correspondents in issue 1964 of AUTOhebdo, available from Monday evening in digital version on all platforms, and from Wednesday on newsstands.