Volkswagen Motorsport’s Sebastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia, defending World Rally Champions, continued their success this season with another win in the Polo WRC at Rally Portugal over the weekend.
The French duo solidified their place at the top of the driver and co-driver standings respectively, after registering their third victory out of just four events to far this season. Their closest championship rivals at this point are teammates Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila.
“Portugal is a place I love to drive and now I have four wins from five starts in a World Rally Car here. I had a good battle with Mikko (Hirvonen) for a big part of the rally, and I had good tyre management and that made the difference. To save my tyres, I didn’t push like crazy,” Ogier admitted.
M-Sport Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen earned second overall (the Finn’s Fiesta WRC was 43 seconds behind the leader), while Norwegian Mads Ostberg rounded off the podium 1 minute 12 seconds in arrears.
Compatriot Andreas Mikkelsen brought the Volkswagen Motorsport II Polo home in fourth, taking it a lot easier than when he rolled out of the top order last month in Mexico, with fellow Norwegian and WRC veteran Henning Solberg in fifth.