Sébastien Ogier Archives

1-2 finish for Toyota in Monte Carlo Rally, record 8th win for Sebastian Ogier

The TOYOTA GAZOO Racing team got off to a great start for the 2021 motorsport season with victory in the Rallye Monte-Carlo. Besides a 1-2 finish, Sebastien Ogier and his co-driver Julien Ingrassia also won the legendary event for a record eighth time. The victory was also the 50th for Ogier and Ingrassia in the FIA World Rally Championship, becoming only the second competitors recording such an achievement.

This is the first time that the team has won the WRC’s most prestigious event with its Toyota Yaris WRC, having made the podium every year since its debut in 2017. It is only the fourth Rallye Monte-Carlo win in Toyota’s history, the first time being in 1991.

The event lived up to its reputation as the most demanding event on the WRC calendar with special challenges for this year’s edition. To start with, the route was different and a modified schedule to follow coronavirus restrictions in France meant that some stages took place in the darkness before dawn.

Then WRC teams also had to get to grips with tyres from the new sole supplier, Pirelli. This year, conditions were very wet with snow and ice, making tyre choice even more critical to the outcome.

The Toyota team led the rally from the third stage early on Friday morning, with each of its three entries all taking turns in the lead over the course of the rally’s longest day. On his home event, Ogier claimed the lead back with a storming stage win on Saturday’s first test. He took a 13-second advantage over Evans into the final day, when he won three of the four stages – including the rally-ending Power Stage – to begin the defence of his title in the perfect way.

With second place Evans also makes a strong start to his championship campaign, while Rovanpera begins his second season having fought for the podium on such a demanding event. Tyre damage on Sunday’s first stage contributed to Rovanpera missing out on the top three, but he did finish with the second fastest time in the Power Stage.

With Evans third quickest, the team locked out the top three positions on the Power Stage, which from this season also gives bonus points towards the manufacturers’ championship. This, combined with the 1-2 finish in the rally, means the team takes maximum points from the opening round.

TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRC Challenge Program driver Takamoto Katsuta also made it four Yaris WRC drivers in the top six as he completed Rallye Monte-Carlo for the second year in a row and scored his best WRC result so far in sixth place.

Arctic Rally Finland (February 26-28) is a new addition to the WRC calendar for 2021, taking the place of the cancelled Rally Sweden as the year’s only pure winter event. The rally will be based in Rovaniemi – capital of Finland’s northernmost region (and also the ‘home’ of Santa Claus) – with stages to take place inside the Arctic Circle on roads with a good covering of snow and ice.

110th Rallye Monte Carlo starts today

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The 2021 World Rally Championship, which will have 12 rounds, begins today with the classic Rallye Monte-Carlo. The oldest event on the WRC calendar will celebrate its 110th anniversary with this year’s edition.

Over that time, the rally has formed a reputation as one of the most demanding in the world due to the unpredictable, wintery conditions in the French Alps, bringing ice and snow to the asphalt roads. This usually makes tyre selection an important element of the event and this year, the crews will be choosing from new tyres supplied by Pirelli, which commences its 4-year agreement with the FIA as exclusive tyre provider to the leading competitors.

Changes due to pandemic
While the challenge remains as tough as usual, there are a number of changes for this year’s Rallye Monte-Carlo as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 restrictions in the area. There will be no Shakedown before the rally begins, with two stages to the north of the Service Park in Gap. Tomorrow takes the competitors to the west for a loop of 3 new stages, beginning in the early hours of the day, with the first two runs then repeated in the afternoon.

On Saturday, the start takes place before dawn and there will be 3 stages before the crews drive south to Monaco, ready for Sunday’s finale. The final leg takes place further west than in recent years following severe flooding last October, meaning no trip to the iconic Col de Turini. Briançonnet – Entrevaux instead hosts the rally-ending Power Stage as one of two runs which will take place twice on Sunday.

The teams and drivers
6 weeks after claiming his seventh world title at the 2020 season-closing Rally Monza, Frenchman Sebastien Ogier will be first off the line. Ogier will be targeting a seventh WRC victory on Rallye Monte-Carlo in 8 years. He will again be driving a Toyota Yaris WRC, now in its fifth consecutive season – the last before new technical regulations are introduced to the championship in 2022. However, there will still be some optimisation which will be introduced during 2021.

So far, the car has achieved 17 victories in the WRC (winning over one-third of the events it has taken part in) and 322 stage wins. After the Manufacturers’ title of 2018, it has brought Toyota two consecutive Drivers’ and Co-drivers’ crowns, in 2019 and 2020.

Thierry Neuville, who last year interrupted Ogier’s winning run in Monte Carlo, leads the Hyundai Shell Mobis team assault together with the 2019 champion Ott Tanak. Dani Sordo makes his first Monte start since 2018 in the third Hyundai i20 WRC.

M-Sport Ford is entering two Ford Fiesta WRC rallycars with Gus Greensmith and Teemu Suninen as drivers. The 2C Competition team has Pierre-Louis Loubet in a Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC, while Japan’s Takamoto Katsuta also embarks on his first full season in an additional fourth Toyota Yaris WRC.

5 brands in WRC2
An expanded FIA WRC2 field of 8 cars for the opening round of the season features 5 different manufacturers of Rally2 cars. Regular category drivers – France’s Adrien Fourmaux in a Ford Fiesta Mk II, Russia’s Nicolay Gryazin in a Volkswagen Polo GTI, Bolivia’s Marco Bulacia in a Skoda Fabia Evo – are joined by Sweden’s Oliver Solberg on a Hyundai NG i20 or France’s Eric Camilli driving a Citroen C3. Eleven more crews, led by Frenchmen Nicolas Ciamin and Yohan Rossel in Citroen C3s, are entered into FIA WRC3.

Sebastien Ogier wins 2020 World Rally Championship title on first time with TOYOTA GAZOO Racing

While the Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team won the Manufacturers category in the 2020 World Really Championship (WRC), Sebastien Ogier of TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRT which took the Drivers title this year at the conclusion of the season in Italy

The 36-year old French driver has won titles in 7 WRCs since starting becoming an active participant in 2008. This year, with co-driver Julien Ingrassia, he used a Toyota Yaris WRC for the first time. He has previously driven in the Citroen, M-Ford and Volkswagen teams.

The Frenchman is the fifth different driver in 30 years to win the WRC title driving a Toyota, reclaiming the crown after Ott Tanak won the championship with the team in 2019. Toyota’s Elfyn Evans, also in his first season with Toyota, was on track to take the season’s driving honours until he slid off the road on an incredibly slippery right-hander on Saturday. He finished second in the championship. Ogier made it through to Sunday’s conclusion with a final margin of 13.9 seconds in a demanding rally with winter conditions that made driving treacherous.

“I feel the team would also have deserved to win the Manufacturers’ title; we fought as three drivers against five and came so close. But this seventh title for me is also a big achievement for the team and I couldn’t have done it without them, so thank you to them and I’m looking forward already to this bonus season for my career in 2021,” he said.

The event was the last one that Tommi Makinen, a former WRC champion, will have a role as team principal. Next year, he becomes Motorsport Advisor to Toyota. Team chairman Akio Toyoda congratulated Ogier and Ingrassia on their victory, expressed his consolation to Evans and paid tribute to Makinen who he said would continue supporting Toyota to make ever-better cars.

“Thanks to Tommi, we were also able to develop the GR Yaris,” the Toyota President said. “He led us to change our way of making cars through participating in the WRC.”

*The Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team won the WRC Manufacturers title for a second consecutive year. With the Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC, the team scored 3 victories and 11 individual podiums.*

Sebastien Ogier wins Rally Mexico for sixth time – in yet another car!

Sebastien Ogier and co-driver Julien Ingrassia secured their first victory for the TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team with a record-equalling sixth Rally Mexico triumph. It was also the first win on the gruelling gravel event for the Toyota Yaris WRC.

The finish of the event was brought forward to Saturday evening, a decision taken in the face of fast-changing travel restrictions connected with the global COVID-19 virus outbreak to ensure safe and timely travel home for officials, competitors and team personnel. Some countries in Europe are going into lockdown in view of the pandemic numbers increasing.

In his third start with Toyota – and first on gravel – Ogier dominated proceedings after taking the lead on Friday’s second stage. He led by 13.2 seconds coming into Saturday, and immediately extended that advantage with a stunning stage win on SS13 Guanajuatito. His final winning margin was 27.8 seconds.

With his sixth Mexico win in 8 years – behind the wheel of four different cars – Ogier moves into the lead of the championship ahead of team-mate Elfyn Evans, who finished a strong fourth with co-driver Scott Martin after running first on the loose gravel roads on Friday.

Kalle Rovanpera continued the impressive start to his top-flight WRC career in fifth place: the 19-year-old’s third top-five finish in as many rallies, together with Jonne Halttunen. Rovanpera was within a few seconds of a podium place coming into Saturday, but was disadvantaged by running early in the road order.

With its all-new driver line-up having taken two wins in its first 3 events, Toyota’s rally team has further increased its lead in the manufacturers’ championship to 21 points.

“The first two years in Mexico, we could not fight during the rally due to overheating. But our engineers have put a lot of effort into improve the cooling system and finally we reached the top of the podium! I also thank their fighting spirits for the kaizen,” said Akio Toyoda, the Team Chairman and President of Toyota Motor Corporation.

The fourth round, to have been held in Argentina from April 23 – 26 as the event organiser announced it is postponed. The postponement follows many other motorsport events around the world, including major championships. In most cases, the governments of the host countries have started to ban events with large crowds for a period of time. Malaysia, for example, has banned public gathering of more than 250 people until April 30, 2020.

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