Sebastien Ogier took yet another victory at Rally Australia, and now has an unsurpassable points lead in the 2015 FIA World Rally Championship, earning the Volkswagen Motorsport driver his third straight championship win.
The Frenchman completed the rally with a lead of 12.3 seconds over team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala, who suffered from a broken alternator belt prior to the final powerstage, but was able to take part in the stage using a spare, with a time 1.1 seconds behind his team-mate.
Third place goes to Citroen‘s Kris Meeke, who had led the rally for a short while. However, by Sunday afternoon he found himself considerably off the leader’s pace, and falling ever closer to fourth-placed Andreas Mikkelsen.
The Norwegian came home 38.5s down, and 5.9s behind Meeke.
Fifth place went to Hayden Paddon on what is the closest the Hyundai Kiwi gets to a home round. He had a strong lead over Ott Tanak and Thierry Neuville. Rounding out the top WRC runners were Dani Sordo and Elfyn Evans, whilst Stephane Lefebvre, who filled in for an injured Mads Ostberg, finished 13th overall, behind a few WRC2 runners. He was 16:10.4 slower than Ogier.
“It’s an amazing season, the best I’ve ever done,” said Ogier. “No mistakes, so many great performances and this one is once again a very high one. It’s the most difficult rally to open the road and still we managed to win. It’s the perfect way to get my third title.”
