Sébastien Ogier has clinched the seventh Rally Portugal win of his World Rally Championship career, as erstwhile rally leader Ott Tänak ran out of stages to catch the lead Toyota after an impressive Sunday fightback.
Tänak had led until Saturday afternoon, when a power steering failure cost him over half a minute and dropped him from the lead to third. The 2019 world champion charged back at full speed on the final day, dominating the Sunday classification and falling only 8.7 seconds short of first place.
On Sunday’s first stage it had even looked as if Kalle Rovanperä would enter the fray for victory, taking 11.1s out of Ogier on Paredes. But thereafter he began to struggle for grip and instead fell into the clutches of Tänak, with the Hyundai driver taking control of second place on the penultimate stage.
“Long and difficult weekend for us,” concluded Rovanperä. “Definitely a big disappointment that we couldn’t find the pace even with a good starting position as today.
“We are missing a lot of pace, I cannot be faster than that, the whole day and the whole weekend I was pushing well with no mistakes, just no grip or pace on the car right now.”
Tänak meanwhile was simply unstoppable on Sunday, taking the maximum 10 points available from the final day – and at the finish spelled out that he’d been in win it or bin it mode.
Tänak was undoubtedly the fastest driver at Rally Portugal
“After yesterday’s disappointment it was coming back with a second place or with the steering wheel,” said Tänak. “Luckily we brought the car back as well.
“[This rally was] a great disappointment, we are still too fragile to compete with Toyota but at least the performance on the new chassis is good, so at least we’ve done some good job.”
Tänak was one of the first to congratulate Ogier at the Fafe finish line, humorously querying: “How many times can you win this rally?”
Seven is the answer for now. And being able to win number seven had brought Ogier close to tears at the stop line.
“It’s something I can be proud of, to stay competitive after all these years,” said Ogier.
“OK, Ott was just flying like crazy, maybe a bit too much actually! So I think on our side, we proved one more time that race management is a craft that we have.”
Road sweeping was a theme throughout the weekend; one which Thierry Neuville had pinpointed as limiting him to fourth place. While mostly content with the balance of his i20 N Rally1, he kept fighting the rear kicking out, limiting his ability to push and compete with the top three on stage times.
“[I’m] really disappointed for the team and for Ott this weekend,” said Neuville. “We deserved more as a team. Hard times but we keep pushing.”
Takamoto Katsuta finished in no man’s land in fifth place and was lucky not to pick up significant damage on the second pass of Felgueiras; exiting the first hairpin his GR Yaris ripped bedrock out of the road which spun him around, costing him over 20s as he got pointed the right away again and then took it steady to the finish.
That came one stage after Katsuta had elected to play the team game, deliberately slowing on Paredes to stay out of Elfyn Evans’ way in the Sunday classification.
“I decided to not take Sunday points,” he said, explaining his time loss.
But come the powerstage he elected to put the hammer down, ironically to Toyota’s cost: he placed fourth, ahead of Ogier as the second-quickest GR Yaris driver. But as Katsuta wasn’t nominated for points, and non-scoring cars ‘block’ other cars from scoring manufacturers’ points in their place, Katsuta effectively robbed his own team of an extra point.
His push was exemplified by making the biggest leap over the iconic Fafe jump at the finish: “That was quite big!” Katsuta said. “I thought we landed in another country!”
Championship leader Evans has had his lead cut to 30 points, after his woe of being first on the road on Friday was compounded by subsequently being one of the earlier runners on the following days.
On the Paredes test Evans said he’d “tried to change the [driving] style a little bit to see if it works,” and that appeared to bring modest success: he caught and passed his junior teammate Sami Pajari for sixth overall by 7.3s.
Evans was handicapped, but sub-par in Portugal
“Obviously not an easy weekend,” said Evans. “Friday was tough, but I think we made it a bit tougher on ourselves with the speed we were able to show from midday Friday onwards. We’re very disappointed with the overall outcome, we need to be better in Sardinia.”
“The plan was quite simple, that we just try to get used to knowing the gravel conditions a bit more with this car, especially these kind of twisty European gravel roads.”
M-Sport failed to trouble its manufacturer rivals but its intra-team battle was won decisively by Josh McErlean, who after a close battle with Grégoire Munster on the opening two days pulled away into the distance to clinch eighth.
Sesks had suffered a puncture on Friday first’s stage, which he stopped to change and lost over three minutes. He then picked up another three minutes for a stage start procedure violation on Saturday and finished the rally well adrift of the points-paying positions.
A one-minute penalty in 2023 and crashing out of the lead a few corners after Kalle Rovanperä had gone off in 2024 had cost Oliver Solberg Portugal wins in the past two years; there was no costly error this time around.
He inally put painful memories of recent Rally Portugals behind him with a commanding WRC2 win; even a spin on Friday from which he struggled to find reverse gear barely hindered his progress on the way to a 51.8s victory.
Title rivals Yohan Rossel and Gus Greensmith battled over the second step of the podium. Sunday proved decisive: Greensmith’s decision to play it safe and take two spare wheels backfired, not due to the extra weight itself but how that weight upset the balance of his Śkoda.
“For sure we have to take a few things on the chin this weekend,” said Greensmith, who ended the rally 16.4s behind Citroën’s lead factory driver. “A bad tire call did not help our cause. But first and third is a good start to the season.”
