It was a great day of rallying. Also favored by the absence of Formula 1 and MotoGP, the WRC took the cover with merit, offering a great Rallye Monte-Carlo, with Sebastien Loeb who imposed himself on the wire, with only 10 ″ 5 ahead of Sebastien Ogier, victim of a puncture on the left front in the 16th round and a ten-second penalty in the Power Stage.
A historic victory for Loeb, who reached the age of 48: his 80th in the World Rally Championship, the first with a female co-driver (Isabelle Galmiche) after 25 years and the first of M-Sport in the last three World Championships. Ogier, after analyzing his weekend, congratulated his compatriot: “Congratulations to Sebastien and also to Isabelle. You did a great rally and we enjoyed the battle! Happy to have shared the podium with you after such a long time!“.
Congrats @SebastienLoeb, and Isabelle as well 👏🏻 You did a great rally and we really enjoyed the fight! Happy to be sharing a podium with you after such a long time! https://t.co/dAagK9rdZ9
– Sébastien Ogier (@SebOgier) January 23, 2022
Ogier also praised the new navigator Benjamin Veillas: “Our teams must be celebrated. They have done a fantastic job building completely new cars that are completely different from the others. I was expecting more problems, there were some but we could fight like the good old days. It was really fun, a good show for the sport. I wanted first place, not the latter, so I can’t say I’m 100% satisfied. We can keep smiling, we gave everything out there, but fate decided otherwise today and we had to settle for second place. But it was fun and now we have a reason to come back next year: I’m not sure my wife is going to like that! Benjamin did well, really. We have to admit it’s never easy to jump in the car, they are really fast. And when you’ve never done this job at this level, you have enormous pressure on your shoulders. Overall I am very happy with what Benjamin did over the weekend. Of course there are some details that can improve, but no one can jump in and do the perfect job. Today it was almost more difficult for him than for me. I have had the opportunity to enjoy many successes already in my life, in my career. It would have been incredible for him to win in Monte-Carlo, but it was still a great result. Luck wasn’t on our side today, but I’m sure we’ll win a few rallies together“.
#WRC #Ogier #honors #Loeb #Happy #podium #FormulaPassionit