Ogier dominates in Mexico!

You could be forgiven for thinking that we're in for another 9 years of dominance by a Frenchman in a near infallible team, given how Sebastian Ogier and VW have only been competing together for WRC three rallies, and have won two of them, convincingly.

Ogier flying high on route to winning Rally Mexico 2013

Mexico was the first rally in ten years we haven't seen the all-conquering Sebastian Loeb in action, the record-shattering former-gymnast electing to cut down on his rallying this year with a view to retiring altogether at the end of the year. In the event itself, Ogier, Loeb's former arch-enemy, was only lead twice, after the first stage by Theirry Neuville and by Mads Ostberg over SS4 and SS5.

“The start of the season is just amazing for us. We want to thank the team because the car was perfect again all weekend. Okay, just a small alarm this morning with a sensor but it was not a drama, and here we are again at the end with a perfect amount of points. Now we have quite a good lead for the championship after just three rallies. For sure the season will be long, but already it’s not bad,” said Ogier.

Mikko Hirvonen claimed second but it could have been all over when he punctured 25kms from the finish of the Otates 2 stage. He managed to fend off the flying Neuville, who was closing on the Finn before he landed in a ditch SS23 and called quits on the fight for second, settling for third. However they had no hope of winning, after the puncture Hirvonen lay over three minutes off Ogier, with the Frenchman's winning margin being 3 mins 28 secs at the end.

The Belgian ace said: “We did a job we can be proud of and learned a lot. This morning I tried to push but okay, it went wrong, but we are still here with no damage on the car. It’s been a long wait for a podium, last year many things went wrong. We showed everyone we can learn, we took another step, now we are ready to go forward again and win,”

Such was the pace of the Top 3 and Ogier in particular, Dani Sordo was over six minutes off the flying VW in fourth place. Sordo, in the other works DS3 WRC, wasn't happy with the handling of his car but still managed to win the final stage of the rally.

Endurance specialist Nasser Al-Attiyah took fifth place in a Ford Fiesta RS WRC, with the returning Chris Atkinson in sixth in Khalid Al-Qassimi's DS3 WRC. The ever spectacular Ken Block took seventh, and local hero Benito Guerra finished eighth on his WRC car début. Rounding out the Top 10 was Martin Prokop and Evgeny Novikov in ninth and tenth, respectively.

Mads Ostberg was the only driver able to take the fight to Ogier but he went out with an alternator failure on his works Fiesta RS WRC. His frustration got the better of him and he kicked the car, a normal reaction for some drivers but this time Ostberg hurt his foot, the icing on the cake of a bad day.

He said: “It’s the biggest disappointment I’ve ever had in rallying,” he said. “I’ve been disappointed previously but never this bad. It’s very frustrating after fighting for a good result. I can’t believe it’s the third rally in a row where we’ve had technical issues and I’m not happy with that. I hope this will change now.”

Ogier also won the Power Stage, featuring the infamous Brinco Jump. He lead Mads Ostberg by 5.9 secs at the end of the stage, with VW team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala in third.

In the WRC2 category, Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari blew the opposition away in his Ford Fiesta RRC. Co-driven by Killian Duffy and on his WRC2 début, the Qatari won all bar two stages. Nicolas Fuchs and Ricardo Trivino closed out the remaining places on the podium, both in Group N-spec Mitsubishi Lancers.

Photo credit: Willy Weyens