Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala has admitted he would like Sébastien Ogier to contest all remaining rounds of the 2024 World Rally Championship.
The eight-time world champion, like team-mate Kalle Rovanperä, has only a part-time program this season – as he has each year since ending his full-time career at the end of 2021.
But were it not for his Rally Poland recce accident, Ogier would have contested 75% of the events so far this season. Having finished no lower than second on each of his five starts, Ogier lies fourth in the championship standings, just 28 points behind championship leader Thierry Neuville and only 15 down on full-time team-mate Elfyn Evans.
Ogier’s performances have been instrumental in the Toyota team whittling down Hyundai’s lead in the manufacturers’ championship to just a single point ahead of next week’s Rally Finland, where he is a confirmed starter.
DirtFish understands there is some suspicion within Hyundai that Ogier will drive in the final four events of 2024 too. After all, he contested all but one of them – Chile – last year.
“It’s one thing that we could consider,” Latvala told DirtFish. “He’s still going to drive in Finland now. And I think, yeah, he has a little bit of chances in the drivers’ championship.
“So it is one option that we could consider. But does he want to do the full championship, the rest of the championship? We need to ask him.”
DirtFish had already done just that. When told that rival team members suspected Ogier would be ever-present for the rest of 2024, the Frenchman joked: “Maybe I should say yes to scare them!”
He continued: “I don’t know. The truth is, at the moment, we have done five out of eight. And with the current points system, it’s honestly nearly impossible to recover big points. So [the championship deficit] is still big points.
For sure, when you have two world champions in the same team, it's definitely making the team strongerJari-Matti Latvala
“More importantly, we’ve done a great operation this weekend. And I will be in Finland, like you know. But I can already say that not all rallies are planned up to the end of the year, but you never know.
“Maybe I should keep them thinking that it can happen and then, you know, pressure is on.”
DirtFish put it to Latvala that Ogier himself had not scotched the rumors.
“Then there’s maybe a little chance I can talk with him,” he said, before confirming his preference would be to have Ogier in the car at every event.
“Yes, if you look at the performance for these years, if we can have the top guys, you can clearly see here when we come to this event and we have a strong driver line-up, it’s helping in the championship,” Latvala said.
“For sure, when you have two world champions in the same team, it’s definitely making the team stronger – the drivers, all the team stronger – and then we have better chances to fight for the championship points.
“And I think in that sense you want him to be driving all the events.”
