Unquestionably, Sébastien Ogier is having a great World Rally Championship season.
With three wins from five starts, and the speed to have won all five, Toyota’s eight-time top-level world champion is competing as and when he chooses and is achieving great success.
But if you thought Ogier’s season was great, how about things for the man on the other side of the car?
Vincent Landais.
None of what’s to come is to suggest that a WRC win doesn’t mean much to Ogier – just look at how dearly he cherished his latest success on Safari Rally Kenya.
But it’s a feeling he has experienced in all but one of the last 14 WRC seasons.
Landais, however, hadn’t even stood on the podium – let alone on the top step of it – before the start of the 2023 season.
In a career that had stopped, then started, stopped then started again, a return to ride alongside Pierre-Louis Loubet as he rebuilt his reputation last year piqued the interest of Ogier who invited Landais into his Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 for last season’s finale in Japan.
The pair won their first stage together and haven’t really looked back.
That bizarre sequence of events that led to Ogier’s foot slipping on the brake pedal and going off the road in Sardinia is as low as it’s got for the Frenchmen in their six rallies together so far.
Aside from that, when they’ve avoided punctures – they’ve won.
Which gives Landais a remarkable record of holding as many WRC victories as he does podiums. Every time he’s stood proudly and sprayed champagne at the end of the event, it’s been from the highest step.
“It has been a wonderful season so far, it has been quite an amazing season for me,” he said.
Vincent Landais’ WRC CV
Starts: 60 (19 at top level)
Wins: 3
Podiums: 3
Points: 149
Stage wins: 39
Best championship pos.: 11th in 2022
Career wins
WRC: 3 (2023 Monte Carlo Rally, Rally Mexico & Safari Rally Kenya)
WRC2: 2 (2021 Rally Portugal & Rally Italy)
“I have been on the podium three times in my life and it has been three victories, so I cannot complain for the moment I have to say.”
Better yet, Landais believes Monte Carlo, México and Safari Rally Kenya are the perfect three rallies to have won.
“It is so, so nice and in my mind Monte Carlo, México and here are the most important rallies.”
