crankandpiston.com is on the ground for the 2015 Rally Catalunya as World Rally Champion Sebastien Ogier throws it away at the final hurdle.
[Not a valid template]There’s no doubt Sebastien Ogier was kicking himself on Sunday evening. In the closing stages of Rally Catalunya, the newly-crowned three-time World Rally Champion seemed to have victory in the bag with 50 seconds in the bag over second-placed Andreas Mikkelsen.
Only for it all to unravel on the final stage when Ogier, in his own words, ‘wanted some fun’, upping his pace in a bid for maximum powerstage bonus points. It didn’t work. Having amended his pace notes earlier that morning, the Volkswagen Motorsport driver’s run ended against the barrier. Embarrassing to say the least, although a shock debut victory for fellow VW runner Mikkelsen meant Volkswagen at least left Catalunya with the 11 victory out of 12 this year for the Polo R WRC. Jari-Matti Latvala and Hyundai’s Dani Sordo completed the podium.
A successful albeit fractious weekend then for Volkswagen, if not Ogier, with just one round of a highly successive season left in Great Britain. That left plenty for the team to discuss with crankandpiston.com whilst we were on the ground throughout the event. But we’ll come back to that…
FULL GALLERY OF SHOTS AVAILABLE HERE – CLICK – Images courtesy of Nick Dungan
