The Acropolis which saved Ogier’s career

Olivier Quesnel really didn’t need this. Not now. His boss, his big boss – Automobile Citroën CEO Jean-Marc Gales – was in town. And everything was going wrong in Sardinia, 2009.

Petter Solberg’s three-year old Xsara WRC was beating Sébastien Loeb’s factory C4 WRC, the team had made a hash of strategy calls throughout the event and now Sébastien Ogier had gone off. Again.

When I found Quesnel, early on the final day in Olbia, the frustration was writ large across his face. Reigning Junior World Rally champion or not, Ogier’s future was in question. Three mistakes in four rallies was not sitting well with Quesnel.

Asking about the young Frenchman’s future, Citroën’s team principal took off his sunglasses and rubbed his forehead. He smiled a smile which spoke the thousands words he couldn’t or wouldn’t offer.

He didn’t know.

“He will go in Acropolis. Let’s see.”

How close Ogier was to actually losing his seat, we’ll never know. But his debut on the World Rally Championship podium 16 years ago couldn’t have been better timed.

Talking to Ogier’s co-driver Julien Ingrassia about this period years later offered a deeper insight into what the pair were having to deal with.

On the face of it, things couldn’t have been better for them. They’d won the 2008 Junior title so quickly, folk were still trying to work out how to pronounce Sébastien’s surname. Their reward for a dominant Junior debut? A C4 WRC for Rally GB. Yes, they shunted, but before that? They were leading the rally.

A couple of months later, they’re winning the Monte Carlo Rally in a Peugeot 207 S2000. Granted, it was one of three Intercontinental Rally Challenge years out of the WRC, but a Monte win is a Monte win.

They were flying high when they joined Citroën’s Junior WRC team for 2009. Or were they?

“It was a difficult time,” Ingrassia told DirtFish. “I remember when we were in a test for the C2 R2 Max, not long before [Rally] GB. At that time, we didn’t know what was happening for the next year.

“My telephone rang and it was Olivier [Quesnel]. He told me the adventure would go on for Séb, but not for me.

“This was the first time in my life my legs went from under me and I fell to the bed. I told him I was in Paris the next day and we could discuss it face-to-face then. Séb had been told just before me. It was hard to swallow, just one week after the championship.

“That day, we crashed on the test – probably because we were not focused. There were big things happening.”

Working alongside Ogier was everything to Ingrassia.

He added: “I gave up my job at the end of 2007. It was not easy. I was sharing rooms in flats with friends and almost every night I was eating soup and bread – it was quite rough. But I did this because I wanted to be ready to take every chance which came for me.”

Just before Christmas, Ingrassia was told the partnership would continue. His job was safe. But months into that 2009, neither of them were secure.

“The start of 2009, the first three or four rallies, were very, very hard,” said Ingrassia. “We have done some mistakes and the pressure was coming. In Cyprus the pressure exploded and then we went to Portugal and did a small mistake and hit a tree. I think Séb and I were close to being separated at this point.

“This was so tough. There’s no school for this kind of thing. Like there was no school from the end of 2007 into the start of Rally México – our first ever WRC round in 2008. No school for learning the rallies, the regulations, the media, or things like learning another language. We were in a car and on our own.”

Going into the Acropolis Rally 16 years ago, neither of them knew what was coming. Another mistake and that really could have been the end of the road.

Under the maximum pressure possible, the cream rose and the Ogier and Ingrassia partnership finished second. They’d stayed out of trouble, won the odd stage and very much done as they were told.

“We were liberated,” said Ingrassia, smiling at the memory. “We could do this.”

Indeed they could.