Ogier’s enviable position in WRC title race

With Toyota’s manufacturers’ championship secured, it’s every man for himself as the race to be 2025 World Rally champion intensifies at Rally Japan.

Elfyn Evans is atop the standings with team-mates Sébastien Ogier and Kalle Rovanperä sharing a 13-point deficit to the Welshman.

That gives Evans an obvious advantage with two rounds remaining, but mentally it’s Ogier who perhaps has the edge.

Intriguingly, the 2025 title will mean just as much to each driver for a different reason. For Evans, who is yet to be world champion, it’s the fulfillment of a lifetime’s work and ambition. For Rovanperä, who will trade the WRC for single-seater racing from next year, it’s the perfect way to sign-off this chapter of his career.

For Ogier?

“I’m a bit more relaxed regarding the target,” he told DirtFish. “I don’t put myself [under] too much pressure. If it happens, it will be amazing. If it doesn’t, maybe it wasn’t supposed to be.”

Now he’s locked in, Ogier will not be satisfied if he misses out on a nith title. But you sense that he doesn’t need it as much, certainly compared to Evans, given his continued priority towards his family.

The perfect example is how, along with his 15+ years of top-flight experience, he’s been able to brush off the surprise puncture that derailed his CER.

“Yeah, it’s motorsport, I would say,” said Ogier. “I’ve been around for some years now and I’ve learned that it’s part of the game, unfortunately, like we say, and that’s the truth. You may do everything you can on your side. We are not and never 100% in control of all parameters. There are always things which can happen out of your hands.

“At the end of the day, [the] important [thing] is to be strong in your head and just being able to put that behind you always very quickly and just focus on what’s coming next because you can only change the future and not the past. So I will do my best to carry on on the same level I’ve been performing this year so far and then see what happens.

“Of course, it’s also helping me having had all this success already in the sport because I have a bit more of, how you say, back view from it.

“My wife actually sometimes tells me anyway, ‘for the sport, it’s not good if you win the championship with competing not all the season’,” he quipped. “Well, at the end of the day, we’ll see what happens now, only two races remaining.”

Ogier reiterated that his target at the start of the season was never to win the championship, nor is the potential to clinch the title without contesting the whole season a source of extra motivation.

“I’m never lying – I’m being very honest when I say that I’m just happy to still enjoy what I do race after race and it’s just happier that it went well and then we decided to compete really for the championship,” he said, “but the plan wasn’t to try to win a championship that way.

“If it happened, yeah, fantastic, would be amazing but you will never hear from my mouth that yeah, even better to do it with doing less race. That was a decision I took for life quality and whatever happens, I will never have any regrets because I’m just enjoying the life I have right now more than ever. And that’s the way it is.”