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Three-time world rally champions Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia are one step nearer to claiming a fourth consecutive drivers’ title in the World Rally Championship (WRC) after claiming a debut victory at Rally France, held on the island of Corsica from 29 September to 2 October.

Fortieth Polo R WRC win
The French duo awarded the 318bhp all-wheel drive Polo R WRC its 40th victory on the asphalt roads through the mountains and the 390.92kms of stages on the event known as the ‘Rally of 10,000 Corners’ (there are in fact just 659 ‘real turns’). They themselves scored the 36th win of their career and dominated the Corsican stages from the word go.

The reigning champions won half of the ten special stages, and set all the best times of the first day – a first since Volkswagen Motorsport entered the WRC in 2013. Ogier and Ingrassia were back on home turf and back on an asphalt surface, and they took full advantage. The smooth surface needed no ‘sweeping’ unlike the gravel tracks of the mid-season events where the pair have posted slower stage times, due to their first place starting positions.

Early dominance
Ogier and Ingrassia’s early dominance showed world champion skills and through a blend of a powerful performance, the right tyre choices for the mixed dry and damp stage conditions, and a cool determination, the Frenchmen set the pace and kept it there, right until the end of the event. Team-mates Andreas Mikkelsen and Anders Jæger were chasing hard, along with Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville and Nicolas Gilsoul in their i20 WRC.

Coincidentally, the French pair’s leading chasers were also the crews which could deny them a fourth consecutive WRC title. Ogier and Ingrassia’s win meant that their lead in the Drivers’ Championship is now 68 points: a third place and a point on the Power Stage at Rally Spain would see them crowned champions for the fourth time.

That’s regardless of other results, with only Mikkelsen/Jæger and Neuville/Gilsoul able to stop the current champions taking another trophy: the other Volkswagen Motorsport crew of Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila finished fourth in France and are sadly now out of title contention.

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally France: Ogier/Ingrassia

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally France: Ogier/Ingrassia

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally France: Ogier/Ingrassia

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally France: Ogier/Ingrassia

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally France: Ogier/Ingrassia

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After the one-two-three result of 2015, the pressure was on for Volkswagen Motorsport to win again at its home event of 2016, the Rally Germany of 18-21 August. Set around and in the lush vineyards of Trier and the Mosel region, the first all-asphalt event of the season included the legendary Baumholder military track stages, as well as fast Eifel mountain roads and smooth Saarland stages.

Current and three-time world champion Sébastien Ogier was desperate to be back on the top step of the podium, the French driver having had to spend most of the 2016 season ‘sweeping’ the hitherto gravel roads for the competitors behind him, thanks to his first place in the running order. The ninth round of the 2016 FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) had a lot to play for and released its secrets over three tarmac action-packed days.

Masterly form
Conditions were not easy, even for the reigning world champion – wet concrete and dry asphalt made tyre selection a risky business. But, the Frenchman and his co-driver Julien Ingrassia once again displayed their masterly form. The French duo fought for the lead with team-mates Andreas Mikkelsen and Anders Jæger over the first two days, with Ogier and Ingrassia coming out on top on the fearsome 25-mile ‘Panzerplatte’ stage.

And once they had first place, they didn’t let it slip from their grasp. The first time the pair have won a 2016 event since February’s Rally Sweden, Ogier and Ingrassia were initially unhappy with their soft tyre choice for a resulting dry stage, but still managed to record a time 13.5 seconds faster than Mikkelsen and Jæger, after a place-swapping duel separated by just tenths of a second. The French crew eventually won the event by a massive 20.3 seconds over Hyundai Motorsport’s Dani Sordo and Marc Martí.

‘Fantastic feeling’
A jubilant Ogier was in celebratory mood: ‘A fantastic feeling to be back at the top of the podium after this long dry spell. I am over the moon to have repeated last year’s success at Rally Germany. The home win is extremely important to our team, Julien and I made great progress in the direction of the title in the championship standings.

‘The weekend wasn’t easy for me since I really wanted to win here and then it is easy to be a little bit too motivated going into the race. Then there was the weather, which changed constantly and was extremely difficult to predict. In the end, I waited patiently for my opportunity, and with the times on the Panzerplatte in particular, built up the crucial lead over my rivals,’ he enthused.

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Germany: Ogier/Ingrassia

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Germany: Ogier/Ingrassia

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Germany: Ogier/Ingrassia

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Germany: Ogier/Ingrassia

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Germany: Ogier/Ingrassia

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Once again the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) failed to lived up its 2016 all-conquering Sébastien Ogier expectations, with part-time Citroën driver Kris Meeke stepping onto the winner’s podium at the eighth round of the series, Rally Finland. Finnish Volkswagen Motorsport driver Jari-Matti Latvala was second at his home rally, set in the forests and lakes around Jyväskylä on 28-31 July.

Form in Finland
Latvala has form in Finland, having won one of the fastest events on the WRC calendar in both 2015 and 2014, and he set the pace on the pre-event shakedown, 0.5 seconds ahead of team-mates Sébastien Ogier and Andreas Mikkelsen, both of whom tied for second. Latvala’s start in Finland – his 164th – saw him surpass Mikko Hirvonen as the most experienced Finnish rally driver in WRC history.

The Finn’s second place in his home country event sees him and co-driver Miikka Anttila climb to third place in the Drivers’ Championship, behind runner-up team-mate Andreas Mikkelsen and fellow Volkswagen Motorsport driver and current world champion Sébastien Ogier. Although a good result, wrc.com reports that a ‘lack of fighting spirit’ was to blame for the Finnish driver not securing a third successive win.

However, it was Ogier’s somewhat uncharacteristic excursion into a ditch following a tight hairpin on stage 10 which made him revaluate his performance. Overall, though, Latvala seemed happy with the result: ‘I am happy with my performance this weekend, even though I came up just short of a hat-trick of wins at the Rally Finland.

‘Very good haul’
‘Second place and a point on the Power Stage is a very good haul. I also climbed a place in the overall standings. All in all, we could not have done any more against Kris Meeke this weekend. Thank you to all the many fans who supported me. It is always very special to drive here on home soil. We now move on to the asphalt season, which was remarkably good to me last year,’ he stated.

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Finland: Latvala/Anttila

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Finland: Latvala/Anttila

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Finland: Latvala/Anttila

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Finland: Latvala/Anttila

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Finland: Latvala/Anttila

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In what must be the closest event yet this season, the seventh round of the 2016 FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) saw victory go to Volkswagen Motorsport’s Andreas Mikkelsen – but it was down to the wire. Up until the penultimate stage, Estonian DMACK Fiesta crew Ott Tänak and Raigo Mõlder had set a blistering pace on Rally Poland and looked untouchable.

Mikkelsen and co-driver Anders Jæger had driven on the edge of their limits all weekend, and had chased Tanak hard. They were consigning themselves to the second step of the Polish podium, when the Estonian duo suffered an unfortunately-timed puncture on the penultimate stage. An emergency tyre change saw the pair relegated to second place, and the disappointment was palpable.

Sweep supremely fast
A dry event right up until the final day had seen Mikkelsen’s 318bhp Polo R WRC sweep supremely fast through the majority of the event’s 306.1km, and when the rain arrived, it altered grip levels instantly, Tanak one of the casualties who lost time due to tyre choice. And while the runner-up position is still held in high regard, it didn’t soften the blow dealt by the Norwegian Volkswagen driver’s second WRC win.

New-for-2016 pairing Mikkelsen and Jæger proved their mettle in Poland and were the third duo onto the route for the first two days of the rally, which saw them sweep the road clear of loosed gravel for the following drivers. And as first-runner Ogier knows, that’s a distinct disadvantage which slows the car down. However, the young guns from Norway still finished in the top three on 15 of the 21 special stages, and made sure the battle with Tänak and Mõlder lasted for the whole event.

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Poland: Mikkelsen/Jæger

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Poland: Mikkelsen/Jæger

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Poland: Mikkelsen/Jæger

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Poland: Mikkelsen/Jæger

Andreas Mikkelsen

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Following Rally Portugal, the sixth round of the 2016 FIA World Rally Championship was won by the fifth different driver this season. Belgian Thierry Neuville and his co-driver Nicolas Gilsoul lifted the trophy in Sardinia at the 2016 Rally Italy, with Volkswagen crews Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila second and Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia third.

Just as with last month’s WRC outing in Portugal, while Volkswagen Motorsport failed to win the Italian round of the championship, the podium places helped push its lead still further. The Hanover-based team is now 70 points of nearest rival Hyundai Motorsport, while current three-time world champion Ogier is 64 points clear of second-placed Dani Sordo in the driver standings.

High temperatures and dust
The high 30-degree temperatures and vast quantities of dust proved challenging for the 2016 event drivers. Ogier and Ingrassia once again ‘swept’ the stages open, thanks to their first place in the championship table. While the running order may change for 2017, 2016’s regulations yielded few chances for the French pair to challenge for the lead, the duo swapping over 87 per cent of the roads for other competitors.

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Italy: Ogier/Ingrassia

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Italy: Ogier/Ingrassia

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Italy: Ogier/Ingrassia

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Italy: Ogier/Ingrassia

2016 Volkswagen Polo R WRC, Rally Italy: Ogier

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