It takes a lot to impress Sébastien Ogier. On Friday morning, he was impressed – but it had nothing to do with Sardinia or the World Rally Championship.
It was all about Paris, the French Open and a 38-year-old Novak Djokovic giving world number three seed Alexander Zverev the run around to make his way to a semi-finals on the Roland-Garros clay.
There’s something special about heroes talking about heroes. The reverence, for example, with which Ogier and Lews Hamilton talk of Ayrton Senna is as insightful as it is humbling. And there was more than a touch of that when the Toyota driver reflected on the Serbian.
“He’s just so impressive,” said Ogier. “At 38 years old, what he is still doing – it’s incredible. I’ve never met him, I’m just impressed by him and the way he plays.”
Suggesting to Ogier that he’s rallying’s very own version of Djokovic brings a smile. And it’s true. Djokovic has ended eight seasons at the top of the ATP rankings – just the same as the Frenchman in terms of the WRC rankings.
But where the tennis God failed in France, the Yaris star succeeded in Italy. Djokovic’s hopes of a 25th Grand Slam were spoiled by the 23-year-old Jannik Sinner. Ogier’s 64th world rally win reminded the next generation that he’s not done yet. Not by a long stretch.
Ogier's no longer a full-time player, but still has plenty to offer
Six weeks ago, Ogier’s team-mate Kalle Rovanperä delivered a spellbinding drive to victory on Gran Canaria. Ogier was second. Superbly magnanimous about his team-mate’s performance, the older of the two Toyota drivers was also a touch peeved.
The perfect riposte? Portugal-Sardinia. Win-win. Youth has been put in its place once more.
Last week’s Sardinian win was a record-breaker for Ogier. And what a classy way to chalk up number five. Let’s give the tennis analogy one more shot: anybody remember the men’s final at the Australian Open in 2012? Let me remind you. It was a five-setter between arguably the best of the best: Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. They slugged it out for all but six hours before Novak raised his arms in exhausted victory.
Ogier v Tänak has the same pedigree. Following on from a cracker of a scrap in Portugal (that one ended too soon with power steering failure for the Estonian), Italy was shaping up beautifully.
The pair were split by seven seconds on Friday night. Two stages into Saturday and Tänak had cut the advantage to 4.5 only for Ogier to rebuild his lead to 11.1 ahead of Sunday’s third and final set.
In the end, it was all France. Tänak admitted he couldn’t find the sort of comfort he needed to take this one to the wire. Ogier was masterful. Yes, there was a wee wobble on the powerstage when he got caught out in the ruts and elected to allow the front of the Yaris to run on rather than trying to force the issue and potentially cause more trouble.
Was it rallying’s equivalent to Melbourne, 2012? No. Arguably last year’s two-tenth of a second victory for Tänak over Ogier would make a better case. But that doesn’t suit this narrative, so let’s move on.
Sardinia is a gnarly place to go rallying.
When it’s rough, it gets rougher; when it’s narrow, it gets narrower. Kind of new for this year, when it’s rough, narrow and fast… it gets faster. The middle stage of the Friday loop was the case in point. It was 11 miles of absolute and brand-new menace.
First time through, it wreaked havoc among the next generation. All three of M-Sport’s up and coming drivers were tripped up, with Mārtiņš Sesks in the most spectacular and disappointing fashion.
While Sesks took to social media to explain himself from the side of the road, Josh McErlean took a more considered approach to his justification.
McErlean and Sesks both suffered difficult Fridays
Asked if he’d gone too hard on Friday morning, he considered his response and delivered it with maturity and honesty.
“Possibly,” he said. “I think the road position can get you times without even pushing. On the first stage we weren’t honestly pushing and we were there or thereabouts, so maybe you thought: ‘OK, if we push a bit more we can get better positions overall.’
“But this type of stage, it was new, it was narrow, it kind of sucked you into a false impression of how much speed you can carry around these corners. They’re quite long and a long corner keeps tightening, no matter what you think in the recce – because it’s gravel you’re always sliding and you have to keep that rotation.”
I don’t expect McErlean will make that mistake again.
Interestingly, nobody was sure about Sesks’ crest. Ogier thought about it on the recce, got there in the second stage, listened to his note and lifted – caution was the absolute watchword on the first pass. Yes, he dropped 10 seconds to the fastest time, but he was much more on it for the second shot in the afternoon and, come Sunday, stood on the podium’s top step.
Much as Ogier and his co-driver Vincent Landais are worthy of plentiful praise, so is the wider Toyota Gazoo Racing team.
Toyota didn't test for Sardinia, but still manage to transform the pace of its Rally1 challenger
Was it just me or did any of you raise an eyebrow at the decision not to test for Sardinia? With just 21 days available through the season, it’s impossible to run a pre-event test for every rally. But when the Portugal test was compromised with heavy rain and wet running for a few of the cars, I thought the plan might have been revised.
Within the team, there was likely some discussion about trying to scramble something and make a last-gasp dash for the Italian island. But no. They stuck to their guns and, instead of looking for more running, they drove the data and crunched the numbers. A series of all-hands meetings brought the full team together to talk through what went wrong at round five and how round six could bring improvement and more speed.
(Worth pointing out, Ogier’s Matosinhos win would indicate not too much had gone wrong!)
The result was a major step forward for the Jyväskylä-based outfit. Not that shakedown would have demonstrated it – don’t forget, Thursday’s action was entirely unrepresentative of what was to come inland from Olbia in the following three days.
Hats off to everybody at Toyota, that was a superb effort when backs were pretty much against the wall. But just as the GR Yaris Rally1 moved forward, you could argue the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 took a step backwards from its new-found Portuguese pace.
Hyundai has some work to do after its narrow operating window was exposed again
Sardinia’s a very different beast and Tänak talking about finding a different car every morning wasn’t what Cyril Abiteboul and F-X Demaison needed to hear. The focus of work in the Frankfurt suburbs is still centered on trying to widen the window of operation for the Hyundai.
It’ll be fascinating to see which i20 turns up in Greece at the end of the month – and even more fascinating to see which Thierry Neuville and Adrien Fourmaux drive them. Neuville needs to find a way to lift himself out of the rut he’s slipped into, his season’s mis-fired badly from the start and that has to change at round seven if he’s to have any hopes of a successful title defense.
And Fourmaux? It’s a case of calma calma. Nobody doubts the speed, but rallying’s about riding the rough with the smooth and still coming out on top.
Just ask Ogier. Or Djokovic, if tennis is your thing.
