Sebastien Ogier wins the Acropolis Rally

It was all Citroën in Greece over the weekend as Sebastien Ogier notched up his third WRC win for the year, adding the Acropolis Rally trophy to his cabinet. On Day 1 privateer Petter Solberg placed his DS3 WRC in a commanding lead only to be swallowed up by the works entries on Day 2.

The final day saw the two Sebastien’s fighting over the lead and ultimately the race win. Seven time world champs Sebastien Loeb started the day with a slender advantage over his teammate. Ogier, though, wasn’t giving in and fought hard to eventually claim victory by 10.5 seconds.

It’s the 22nd time Citroën has achieved a one-two victory and it sets a new benchmark for the WRC. Remarkably, Loeb’s second place marks the 100th time he has stood on the podium.

After the race Ogier paid tribute to his team’s reliability, “I’d really like to thank the whole team for two things. One, it gave Seb and I the same chances to battle for victory, and I’m proud to have honoured their trust with a win. Secondly, I have to underline the reliability of the DS3 WRC, which had a problem-free three days in a race that was run at high speed.”

The 2011 WRC season is just over half complete now. Citroen has won six of the seven races, while Ford won the opening event in Sweden. Loeb currently stands atop the championship standings on 146 points, ahead of Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen (129pts) and Ogier (124pts).

Rally Finland is the next event on the 2011 calendar and will be held on 28–30 July.

 

Citroën slides to another world record in Greece!

Citroen has slid into the motorsport record books again by recording a world-beating 22nd One-Two win in the World Rally Championship with Sébastien Ogier leading home team mate Sébastien Loeb in the Greek round of the 2011 World Rally Championship that saw total domination of the event at the weekend (17-19 June 2011) by the Citroen DS3.

Thanks to his 100th podium finish, Loeb has extended his lead in the chase for the 2011 WRC Drivers’ title, while another 1-2 finish further extends Citroen’s lead in the manufacturer’s title chase.

The opening day of the event saw total domination by the Citroen DS3 of Petter Solberg, with the Scandinavian driver setting the fastest times on four of the six stages of the day and the second fastest on the remaining two stages to end the day more than 51 seconds ahead of the chasing Citroens. Leob, meanwhile was slowed down by having to sweep the dusty Greek stages, a situation not helped by two punctures.

Day two saw the top slot swap three times between three different Citroen DS3 rally cars. Solberg, now in the role of route sweeper quickly found that 51 seconds not a big enough buffer to hold Ogier and Loeb at bay and he dropped back to third place as Ogier took the lead, but on the long and demanding stage 13 Loeb’s experience enabled him to clip a full 17 seconds from the time set by Ogier and take over the lead as day two ended.

After two long legs, the last day of the Acropolis Rally was like a final sprint with just 65 timed kilometres. But the two passages through Aghii Theodori – a stage that has often decided the outcome of the event – meant that the crews had to tackle it in a cautious frame of mind. Sébastien Loeb, the overall leader with only 2.2s in hand over his nearest pursuer, and handicapped by the task of road sweeper, knew it would be difficult for him to fight for victory. In the first passage through Aghii Theodori (SS14), Sébastien Ogier overtook the seven-time world champion to lead by a tenth of a second. But Loeb fought back and retook first place in New Pissia 1, also by a tenth!

“I’m in a situation in which I have to take risks to defend my position. I pushed even harder compared to the first two days,” he admitted at the mid-leg halt. “Despite that it went off well and we managed a good damage limitation exercise. As for winning, I don’t know yet. I’ll have to see how big the impact of cleaning is second time through.”

Ogier admitted that getting the broom out hadn’t slowed Loeb down.

“Seb was very quick and we didn’t make up much time on him. I thought that cleaning would play a more important role this morning. Maybe I didn’t push hard enough. I’ll have to up the pace and take more risks second time though,” added Ogier.

While Loeb stated that he had driven a perfect stage in Aghii Theodori 2, Ogier made the break and pulled out 6.2s over his team-mate. He was back in the lead again and he put himself out of range of a possible attack in New Pissia 2 increasing the gap to over 10 seconds. The 4-kilometre Power Stage changed nothing and Ogier set the quickest time, just nine thousandths of a second in front of Loeb: The Citroën drivers scored an additional 2 and 3 points each.

Ogier savoured his third victory of the season:

“This perfect result, rewarded by twenty-eight points, is going to do our championship hopes a lot of good! I’d really like to thank the whole team for two things. One, it gave Seb and I the same chances to battle for victory, and I’m proud to have honoured their trust with a win. Secondly, I have to underline the reliability of the DS3 WRC, which had a problem-free three days in a race that was run at high speed.”

Despite his frustration at having been first out on the road for two days, Loeb also drew positive conclusions:

“Before the start I wasn’t gunning for outright victory above all else. I gave everything I had, but race circumstances meant that I wasn’t able to fight on equal terms. I still think I was the quickest. The twenty points I’ve scored will help me open up the gap over Mikko Hirvonen even further.”

For the Citroen Team boss, victory on an event that traditionally favours the Ford team added to the sweetness of the win.

“This double that we’ve racked up on our rivals’ favourite hunting ground is a fantastic result for Citroën,” summed up Olivier Quesnel, the Citroën Racing Team Principal. “I’m very happy for our two drivers who have both scored precious points in the world championship. With six victories in seven rallies, we can be very proud of our first part of the season.”