It’s fair to say the front page was safe when Sébasiten Ogier entered the Ulster International Rally in 2008. The wider response across Armagh was very much one of the furrowed brow and questioning glance.
The more World Rally Championship savvy had, of course, noted the Frenchman’s incredible arrival into the JWRC. After a year and a bit of ripping it up in his homeland, he stepped onto the world stage and finished an exceptional eighth overall in México. He then took his Citroën C2 Super 1600 to Jordan and landed another class win. In fact, he won three of the first four Junior rounds he started (months later he would be crowned Junior World Rally champion).
But as far as the hardcore Irish Tarmac and British Rally Championship, he remained something of an unknown quantity. The Ulster has a way of sorting the men from the boys. Let’s see what “another Sébastien” has to offer.
But what was Ogier even doing there?
Ogier wasn't even supposed to be doing Ulster. Simon Jean-Joseph was instead
He was driving the C2 R2 Max. This was Citroën Sport’s slightly de-tuned Super 1600 car, a car very much aimed at the domestic market. But the real reason he was there was because Simon Jean-Joseph had injured himself in a water-skiing shunt. Jean-Joseph and the C2 R2 Max had been seen earlier in the British season, just not for long – the car hit mechanical trouble early in the Pirelli International Rally.
The Max’s promotional tour continued with Ogier himself driving it on that year’s Rally Finland (he finished sixth in class). But then he got the call to line up in Northern Ireland alongside leading class contenders Adam Gould, Sam Moffett and Jason Pritchard – the latter running another C2 R2 Max.
Talking to Ogier a few years after the event, he admitted he wasn’t the most clued-up Ulster starter that year.
“I didn’t really know much about the event,” he said. “It was quite late when I got the call to go there – I was with Simon’s co-driver Jack [Boyère]. I remember the roads were nice, but really a challenge. The grip was changing a lot and, in some places, it was narrow and technical. I liked it though, it was good to drive the car again and in this time in my career it was nice to take more experience.”
Ogier won every single stage on his way to a dominant class victory
How did it go?
It was a masterclass from the then 24-year-old in his first season of international competition. Nobody got a look in. Ogier won every stage and dominated to the tune of a five-minute win over Gould.
Across a late August weekend 16 years ago, the world of Irish and British rallying learned lots about the Sébastien named Ogier. As the seasons and titles rolled by, plenty across Armagh and the wider Emerald Isle would happily remember the time the Gap star made his one and only Ulster outing.
