Ogier had to settle for second place behind Hyundai’s Ott Tänak, but the French champion’s season record remains outstanding. Alongside three victories, he now has two second-place finishes, keeping him second in the championship standings—just nine points behind leader Elfyn Evans.
For now, Ogier’s part-time campaign is going according to plan. He has already skipped rallies in Sweden and Kenya, and he will also be absent from the upcoming Rally Estonia in July. The second-place finish was a satisfying result for Ogier, given Tänak’s dominant performance over the weekend.
“It’s been a very strong weekend for sure. I’m very happy with that. There was not much we could do against Ott this weekend when he drives a rally like that. The difference in road position just makes it impossible to have a fight with him,” Ogier summarised.
“Well done to him and his team. A strong win and well deserved. But on our side again, I think we did the maximum as well. And taking so many points for the team is actually very positive. At the end of the day, quite a strong weekend for the team and good points. We only lost four points, and that’s the most important thing for me,” Ogier added, referring to Toyota’s three retirements during the event.
Ogier also faced a setback of his own: two of his Hankook soft-compound tyres failed in mysterious fashion on Friday. The tyres were still in good condition, yet became unusable, which complicated his tyre strategy for the rest of the weekend.
“Friday morning we had some bad luck. I lost two tyres that were still in very, very good condition, but unfortunately, they laminated—something we’re still seeing too much with these tyres at the moment. That was definitely a handicap for the whole strategy for the rest of the weekend. Then on Saturday morning, we couldn’t afford to take enough softs. And with the road still cleaning a lot, we had no chance to match Ott’s speed yesterday,” Ogier said.
“Even if everything had worked perfectly for us, we would have been very close. But winning wasn’t really possible. Of course, my aim is always to win, but this time I’m still very satisfied to have extracted the maximum from my weekend.”
