Ever since the provisional championship leader has had the honour of being first into WRC stages, Ogier has become accustomed to the role and knows how big a handicap it can be on gravel. That said, until now, the Frenchman has been reasonably successful in overcoming the difficulty to finish first. Prime examples include last year’s trip to Mexico, as well Sardinia and Poland.
Last week, however, there were just too many ‘road sweepers’ playing in favour of Latvala who was eighth in the running order on Friday, then seventh on Saturday. The stage times revealed an average deficit for Ogier of 0.6s/km; too much to prevent Latvala from becoming the first Finn to triumph in Mexico.
It was the VW Polo R WRC/Michelin’s 37th victory from 42 outings and it is now the second most-successful car in WRC history, behind the Lancia Delta.
Unsurprisingly perhaps, Ogier was in a grim mood all week and will no doubt want to put his 100th world class start behind him, even though coming second overall and winning the Power Stage earned him 21 points. Meanwhile, Andreas Mikkelsen’s failure to finish (accident) has given him a little breathing space at the top of the provisional standings. With three rounds completed, the Frenchman (77 points) has clocked up almost twice as many points as Norway’s Mads Ostberg (42) who inherited a 16th WRC podium when a penalty was handed to Sordo.
Eric Camilli and Mads Ostberg allowed M-Sport to finish its 200th consecutive rally in the points, with 17 different drivers accumulating 2,811 points since the 2002 Rallye Monte-Carlo.
A solid job by Sordo seemed to have been sufficient to collect a third straight top-three finish for Hyundai Motorsport but the Spaniard was handed a two-minute penalty for a team error (29 tyres used instead of 28, the maximum authorised). Hyundai ended up with fourth and fifth paces as Hayden Paddon celebrated his second Mexican start with a top-five finish.
After Elfyn Evans in Monaco and Sweden, Mexico was the third event this year where the WRC2 winner pocketed a top-10 result. Teemu Suninen (Skoda) won the class easily, more than 20 minutes clear of Hubert Ptaszek (Peugeot).
The world championship will resume in seven weeks’ time with Rally Argentina, an event that Ogier has yet to win. But he will be first on the road again…