Sébastien Ogier dethroned, but not resigned: "This is the moment to push a little harder"

He was in the lead, but he's not. In a single special stage, Sébastien Ogier Oliver Solberg overtook him from fourth place overall, and the Frenchman did not hide his surprise at the finish: “I was very surprised to lose so much time. As always, my approach is never completely on the edge, and in these conditions, when you take risks, you know you can make a difference, but not to this extent. I didn't expect it at all.” Nine-time world champion, the driver Toyota He knows how to read a special report, and he knows when something hasn't gone as planned.

The loss is not irreparable: only five tenths separate the Frenchman from the new leader. But the overall standings have tightened considerably, and the pressure is now coming from both sides, with Thierry Neuville and Sami Pajari is only 5,5 seconds behind the number 1 driver. The latter is aware of this: "Everything is very tight, not just with the leader, but also with the one behind. So naturally, this is the moment when we need to push a little." The diagnosis is straightforward — this morning he didn't take enough risks when conditions became treacherous, and the afternoon will have to be different.

Reset before the afternoon loop

The weather forecast for the afternoon also necessitates work on the setup. "We need to change something in the setup, because more rain is expected this afternoon and we know that with the setup we had this morning, we didn't really have the best base.""That's true," he admits. The lunch break will therefore be used to reposition the car before heading back out onto stages that promise to be even more challenging. As for the tires, however, there's no cause for concern: unlike Thierry Neuville, who was forced this morning to run on worn tires because he hadn't been able to preserve enough the previous day, Sébastien Ogier still has a comfortable supply of new tires to finish the rally.

The question remains: where to strike the right balance between attack and caution, the one that often defines the great rallies? The Frenchman himself draws the line: “You know me, I never take crazy risks, but we’ll inevitably have to take some this afternoon when things start to get tricky. If we stay in our comfort zone, we’ll lose a lot of time. So we’ll have to go for it, while hoping to stay on the road.” A balance that the Gapençais knows better than anyone else — and that he will have to find from the first special stages of the afternoon, from 15 p.m., to hope to take back what Oliver Solberg took from him this morning.

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