Ogier and Toyota celebrated a victory last weekend at the Rally de Portugal, but the team’s other drivers faced difficulties. Kalle Rovanperä and Takamoto Katsuta retired from the rally on Saturday, while Elfyn Evans struggled with pace throughout the rally.
All Toyota drivers had trouble with the GR Yaris Rally1’s setup on the first day, but the situation improved as the weekend progressed.
“When I felt 100% in the car, I pushed and managed to make some good times, and then when the situation was a bit more challenging, more tricky, I could afford to lose a bit of time. Consistency was clearly our strongest argument this weekend, even though I think we were still the best performers,” Ogier recapped.
Toyota conducted their pre-event tests for the Rally Portugal on the island of Sardinia, where conditions are not exactly the same as in Portugal. This was reflected at the beginning of the rally when the car’s setup was not quite right.
Ogier believes that Toyota will have much better starting conditions for the next WRC event in Sardinia.
“I think we will be better in Sardinia because we have tested there. Now we’ve seen that in Portugal, although it did not really work on day one, on days two and three, where the surface was sandier and more like Sardinia, it was not too bad. So I think we are in a good position for Sardinia.”
Last year, Hyundai achieved a double victory in Sardinia with Thierry Neuville and Esapekka Lappi leading the charge. At that time, Ogier retired from the rally while in the lead due to an off-road incident.
The Rally Sardinia is scheduled to take place in two weeks.
