Sebastien Ogier wins Rally Portugal for record seventh time

Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier won Rally Portugal for a record-extending seventh time on Sunday after capitalising on an overnight lead handed to him when Hyundai’s Ott Tanak faced technical issues.

Ogier, the eight-times world champion, had been behind Tanak until Friday, but the Hyundai driver struggled with a power steering issue that dropped him out of the lead when he lost more than 45 seconds as a result.

That gave Ogier a 27.6 second lead heading into Sunday’s finale and the Frenchman did not relinquish it as he powered to a second victory of the season to add to his opening round win in Monte Carlo.

With co-driver Vincent Landais, Ogier finished 8.7 seconds ahead of Tanak despite the Estonian’s attempt at a late comeback, while Toyota’s Kalle Rovanpera finished third, a further 3.5 seconds back.

“I think it’s something I can be proud of, the way I have managed to stay competitive after all these years,” Ogier said.

“Ott was just flying [like] crazy, but maybe a bit too much actually ... On our side, race management is definitely a craft we have, so I’m happy. Seven times here in Portugal, not too bad.”

Tanak went for broke on the final day but ultimately ran out of stages to catch up to Ogier, whose victory gave Toyota its fifth win in as many rounds.

“A great disappointment, we are still too fragile to compete with Toyota. But at least the performance on the new chassis is good, so at least we’ve done some good job,” he said.

Toyota’s Elfyn Evans retained the overall world championship lead but the Briton saw it cut to 30 points over Rovanpera, with Ogier in third place and Tanak fourth.

Reuters