Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team’s Sébastien Ogier has secured a second successive win with his record-breaking sixth victory at the Rally de Portugal.
Just like in the previous round on the asphalt roads of Croatia, Ogier and co-driver Vincent Landais triumphed after a thrilling and close battle on Portugal’s gravel stages. Just one second from the lead at the end of Friday, Ogier took over at the front on Saturday morning as others hit trouble, and used all his experience to get through the longest day of the rally with an advantage of 11.9 seconds.
He increased his margin with a storming stage win in a foggy first test on Sunday morning, allowing him to apply more caution in the following tests and ultimately take victory by 7.9s.
Ogier now has more WRC victories in Portugal than any other driver, having matched Finnish legend Markku Alén’s tally of five wins back in 2017. TGR-WRT meanwhile has now won the last five editions of the event with four different drivers, bringing Toyota level with Lancia and Citroën on eight victories each across the history of the rally.
He said at the end, ““To take another win feels great. It’s nice to achieve some more cool numbers and I have to enjoy and cherish these moments. I had nothing against being tied on five wins for a few years with Markku Alén because for me he’s a legend and I have huge respect for him, but I’ve been asked many times when I was going to take the record and now finally it happened.
“It was another intense fight for everyone to follow and for us in the car there was no moment to relax. I think the way we managed everything was close to perfect: we could always stay in contention for the win without taking maximum risk when it didn’t feel 100 per cent.”
Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin finished sixth overall, securing some important points after a difficult start to the rally on Friday. They faced a further challenge on Sunday after damage to the cooling package in the penultimate stage, but made repairs on the road section to ensure they reached the finish. They remain second in the championship, 24 points from the leaders.
Kalle Rovanperä led after Friday but went off the road on Saturday’s second stage. He and Jonne Halttunen restarted on Sunday and took third in the Power Stage, helping to bank some extra points for the team.
Takamoto Katsuta was also among those fighting for the lead early on before he too stopped on Saturday morning after picking up damage. He and Aaron Johnston rejoined the action on Sunday and were fifth in the Super Sunday and Power Stage classifications. The manufacturers’ standings remain close after five rounds, with TGR-WRT now four points from the lead.
TGR is celebrating a double victory in Portugal after the first WRC2 win for the new GR Yaris Rally2 car on its gravel debut at this level. Jan Solans and co-driver Rodrigo Sanjuan (Teo Martín Motorsport) climbed the order in the highly-competitive category on Saturday and clinched first place by just 3.2 seconds at the finish.
Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans had an unlucky event and sustained damage to his car which put him out of contention but said afterwards, “We definitely found a better feeling in the car but there are still a couple of areas to work on. At least we have some answers from the weekend. We’ll try to turn things around and have a stronger rally in Sardinia.”
PROVISIONAL FINAL CLASSIFICATION, RALLY DE PORTUGAL
1 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) 3h41m32.3s
2 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +7.9s
3 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +1m09.8s
4 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) +1m47.8s
5 Dani Sordo/Cándido Carrera (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +2m48.9s
6 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +6m36.0s
7 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Citroën C3 Rally2) +11m48.4s
8 Jan Solans/Rodrigo Sanjuan (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +11m52.9s
9 Josh McErlean/James Fulton (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +11m56.1s
10 Lauri Joona/Janni Hussi (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +13m40.3s
