Sebastien Ogier dedicated his eighth victory of the 2015 FIA World Rally Championship to the victims of Friday nights tragic events in Paris as he beat Citroen’s Kris Meeke by 26 seconds.
“We’re happy to finish the season like that from a sporting view, but my mind wasn’t really there this weekend. It was hard to carry on after the tragedy in France and our thoughts were with the people. We wanted this victory as our small sign for those who have been touched, and to show we must be even stronger against these things,” said Ogier who had concidered pulling out of the rally after the news from France filtered through.
Ogier was untouchable over the weekend as the Welsh weather hammered competitors with torrential rain and gale force winds. Ulsterman Meeke had the pace over the weekend and possibly could have challenged had he not have been playing it safe to maximise points for Citroen to secure second place in the championship over Hyundai, these efforts were aided by team-mate Mads Østberg who secured seventh place.
Kris Meeke had a faultless weekend to secure second place – Credit: @World / Red Bull Content Pool
Andreas Mikkelsen rounded off the year with third place, unfortunately for the Norwegian it wasn’t quite enough to dislodge Volkswagen Motorsport team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala from second place in the championship despite the Finn suffering a weekend to forget after retiring twice; he did however manage to make the most of a bad situation claiming maximum bonus points in the live TV Power Stage.
Ott Tänak crashed in the fourth stage today meaning that Dani Sordo regained fourth place after losing out yesterday after an altercation with a bank. 9.2 seconds behind Sordo was Hyundai team-mate Hayden Paddon.
After a shaky start to the rally Elfyn Evans consolidated things to secure sixth place in the M-Sport Ford Fiesta. Østberg came home in seventh place after running as high as fourth place over the weekend, the Norwegian had to contend with a hole in the floor of his Citroen DS3 which let muddy water in to the cockpit.
After battling flu all weekend, Stéphane Lefebvre secured eighth place ahead of Robert Kubica and Lorenzo Bertelli.
Hyundai driver Thierry Neuville failed to restart the day after crashing heavily yesterday, the roll cage on his i20 too damaged to continue.
