It was a 2016 Rally Finland to forget for the current three-times World Rally Champion Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia left Finland with no points.
Ogier and Ingrassia attacked the fast-flowing Finnish stages only to come unstuck at SS10 (Surkee), losing 16 minutes to the leaders.
They were to suffer more misfortune as a brake issue at the start of the second leg cost the Volkswagen pair a time penalty for checking in late after their Polo R was being repaired in the liaison section.
Ogier and Ingrassia managed to finish in twenty-fourth place. They still lead the 2016 World Rally Championship Drivers’ Standings by 45 points, ahead of his Volkswagen team-mate Andreas Mikkelsen.
Ogier said post-Rally Finland “Overall it’s a weekend to forget for us as we didn’t score a single point. It’s easy to say with hindsight, but I think we could have had third place without that mistake. I cut the corner more than usual on a very slow hairpin, we spun and slid into the ditch. The roadsides were very slippery after the heavy rain in July and we got stuck. A stupid mistake which cost us dear.
“After our mishaps we finally had decent road conditions on Saturday afternoon as we started from 7th. Even though we weren’t really attacking as we knew we had nothing to hope for in the overall, we were up with the pace of the best cars and it was nice to put in some good times.”
Ogier added about the next rally in Germany. “If we had one reason to celebrate on Sunday evening, it was the end of this series of six gravel rallies, in which we started out knowing that we didn’t have the slightest chance of winning. Mentally speaking, it will do us good to go into the next rallies knowing that we can really fight for victory from the front. That doesn’t mean I’m saying we’ll win; it’s never easy in the WRC, far from it! But I can’t wait for the start in Germany and I hope we’ll be fighting it out with the best of them.”
