Despite one of his World Rally Championship rivals falling by the wayside, lifting him to third place on Rally Estonia in the process, Sébastien Ogier isn’t going to bed a happy man on Saturday night.
Toyota’s six-time world champion should have every reason to smile. Ahead of both his team-mates Elfyn Evans and Kalle Rovanperä, and within half a minute of the rally lead despite starting first on the road for five of Saturday’s 10 tests, Ogier took two stage wins across the day and was promoted to third when Thierry Neuville crashed out.
But, in his opinion, “more or less everything went wrong for us” on the WRC’s first full day of competition since March 14.
Why?
“First of all we made a bad call at the service and went out with the bad set-up, honestly the car was not great this afternoon,” he explained.
“It worked on the first stage because it was [a] very fast one but otherwise we were lacking a lot of grip this afternoon.
“At the same time, on this first stage we still manage the best time but I finished the stage with a tire off the rim and obviously had no spare for the rest of the afternoon with a lot of ruts and risky conditions, so then I just calmed down and didn’t push very hard the whole afternoon, trying to stay smooth and out of trouble.
“But anyway we discovered before the start of [the] last stage that another tire was starting to delaminate inside and unfortunately after one kilometer I lost the rubber on the inside and I lost a bit my concentration, went straight in the junction, stalled the car.
“Bad afternoon.”
Ogier isn’t falling into the trap of getting carried away by the championship picture either. While Neuville – who started Rally Estonia 20 points adrift of Ogier’s points lead – is now looking potentially like a long shot for the crown, the Hyundai driver’s team-mate Ott Tänak will be anything but.
With Ogier third and Tänak in the lead, the defending champion is poised to gain 10 points on Ogier, discounting powerstage bonuses, having started the weekend 24 points behind.
“Up to Ott it’s only 24 points [difference],” Ogier acknowledged, “so you know, if it goes like it is this weekend he’s reduced the gap by half more or less so it’s no big gap.
“So at the moment for sure for Thierry it’s not good today but there is still many others fighting for the championship.”
Ogier will start Sunday with a 6.2-second cushion over Rovanperä, and knows he can’t afford a repeat of Sweden where his teenage team-mate nicked third spot away from him at the death.
