Sébastien Ogier has his sights set on a record-breaking 10th World Rally Championship title after winning Acropolis Rally Greece.
The Toyota driver won last year’s world title despite contesting just 11 of the 14 rounds, but said immediately after the finale in Saudi Arabia that he would only do 10 in 2026.
Acropolis was the sixth event of Ogier’s season, meaning he has four more rallies left in his schedule: Estonia, Finland, Sardinia and Saudi Arabia.
The South American events in Paraguay and Chile clash with German school vacation, which Ogier said he was keen to stay at home for.
However he told DirtFish that he had reviewed his plans before this weekend, with some news expected soon.
“It’s always been, to be honest, at the beginning of the season that I’m trying this year to challenge for the championship,” Ogier said.
“And up to that point it wasn’t really going our way, you know, we were missing… we were not managing to convert the speed we had in the first half of the season with good points and the gap was actually starting to be quite big with Elfyn [Evans].
“So I knew that coming here, if it’s not starting to go our way, we could forget slowly about the championship. But now, catching that many points this weekend is obviously very positive for us.
“And yeah, we will anyway confirm, like you say, for the next two rallies and probably there will be more.”
Asked directly about the South American rounds, Ogier added: “I think I will be able to tell you soon, but some decisions I’ve been taking already before this weekend.”
Ogier started the Acropolis 61 points behind Evans but ended it 33 points adrift after scoring a maximum 35 points.
He’s now third in the standings having secured his second victory of the season and first in Greece since 2011.
“Finally the Greek gods supported me!” he smiled. “It’s been a long weekend and we knew there was never any time to relax. I couldn’t push much because the stages were so rough, but finally we won. It feels like payback after the victory we lost due to a puncture in Portugal.
“We took all 35 points which I didn’t expect, so it’s definitely not a bad weekend!”
