For the third year in a row, Volkswagen are World Rally Champions. Since joining the WRC in 2013, Volkswagen has won everything there is to win in the World Rally Championship. The Wolfsburg-based company has once again won the titles in the Drivers‘, Co-Drivers‘ and Manufacturers‘ competitions.
And the win came in record time: after exactly 76.9 per cent of the season – the earliest any manufacturer has ever wrapped up all three titles. The tenth round of the season in Australia was once again won by Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia, whose latest success was enough to see them crowned world champions for the third time.
“It has just been an incredible season,” said Ogier after the Power Stage – which he won to pick up three bonus points, by the way. “I think that was my best win so far. I didn’t make any mistakes. I have driven so many great rallies, but this here was probably my best.” A lot of superlatives in one statement, but there is no other way of summing up this achievement in words.
This was Ogier’s seventh win of the season at only the tenth rally. However, it was far from child’s play, even though the final result may look relatively clear-cut. Ogier had problems at the start of the rally, as the route was still extremely slippery on Friday. The hard gravel was covered by a layer of fine dust. By the time the World Rally Cars had swept that out of the way, the Frenchman had lost ground and found himself about 15 seconds off the lead at one point. But Ogier hit back in style. He leapfrogged ahead of Kris Meeke (Citroën) – who was enjoying one of his most impressive rallies – to move to the top of the overall standings on Saturday’s final stage.
Jari-Matti Latvala had to settle for second place Down Under, and matched that result on the Power Stage. “Seb was simply the better driver at this rally, so I will have to be happy with second place,” he said after the finish. “I didn’t make any mistakes all rally, but I just came up short of winning here.” Jari-Matti will cope with the slight disappointment and attack again at this season’s remaining rallies – there is no doubting that.
The third of the Volkswagen trio, Andreas Mikkelsen, finished an impressive fourth. He was unable to stop the flying Meeke from claiming the third spot on the podium, but did finish third on the Power Stage to claim the final bonus point. “I am happy with the rally,” said ‘Mikkel’. “I think we put on a good show.”
The Polo R WRC has been nothing short of impressive this year, proving once again to be the strongest car in the WRC field. The powerhouse from Wolfsburg has won 31 of the 36 rallies since making its debut in 2013. 467 stage wins in 668 special stages is an impressive for the 318-hp racer. In 2015, Volkswagen has so far won nine of the ten rallies with the Polo. And the season is still not over. Before the attention turns to the remaining three rounds of the WRC, however, it is time to celebrate. Cheers!
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