Oliver Solberg crashes on the penultimate special stage and ends the giant duel with Sebastien Ogier – Toyota outstanding on the Canary Islands
68th career victory in the World Rally Championship (WRC) for Sebastien Ogier (Toyota; 1st) in a true blockbuster duel with Oliver Solberg (Toyota; DNF), which – unfortunately for the fans – came to a premature end. Ogier finished third on the Power Stage and second in the Super Sunday classification.
A true thriller of seconds was decided on the penultimate stage: Solberg, who was only 2.2 seconds behind the nine-time world champion at this point, crashed on the penultimate special stage of the rally, the second passage of Ingenio-Telde-Valsequillo.
The fans thus missed out on a gigantic duel for victory on the Power Stage, which turned into victory management for Ogier. He won the rally by 19.9 seconds ahead of Elfyn Evans (Toyota; 2nd) to take his first win of the season.
“We obviously didn’t want to see it end like that. Oliver had done a fantastic job up to that point. Rallying is tough. Being fast is important, but making it to the finish is even more so. I never panicked when I saw him attacking and just kept my rhythm. I’m sorry for you, Oliver. I’m sure we’ll still have some great battles,” said the rally winner.
Solberg’s accident also meant that Toyota missed out on what they thought was a five-way win, with Sami Pajari (Toyota; 3rd) and Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota; 4th) ultimately completing a four-way victory for the Japanese team.
Packed duel until the penultimate stage
Ogier and Solberg fought a duel from the very first day. On Friday, the defending champion still had the better end to the day. He won four of the six special stages driven (one stage had to be canceled due to 100 spectator cars parking incorrectly), but 8.9 seconds was not a safe cushion.
On the second day, Solberg set about catching up, but had to painstakingly reduce the gap tenth by tenth. On the last stage of the day, the longest of the rally at 28.90 kilometers, he made up 1.4 seconds in one fell swoop and went into the final day 3.8 seconds behind.
On Sunday, it was time to get up early, with the first special stage starting at 7:35 local time (8:35 CEST). Ogier lost a further second on the first of Sunday’s two stages on a partly damp track. His cushion thus shrank to 2.2 seconds. Solberg’s accident followed on the next stage. The Swede was the only Rally1 retirement of the event.
Evans initially had to fight his way through a difficult Friday, on which he was still in fourth place behind Pajari. “I can’t be satisfied with that. I didn’t feel bad, but the car didn’t turn in the way I would have liked,” he reported on Friday evening.
From Saturday onwards, things went better. Evans overtook Pajari on the first stage of the day and even gave chase to Ogier and Solberg, who went one better in the afternoon. He was actually managing third place when Solberg’s retirement flushed him forward. Evans won both the Power Stage and the Super Sunday classification, which he snatched from Ogier by two seconds on the final stage.
At the same time, Pajari inherited the final podium place. Toyota decided against a team order in favor of championship leader Katsuta. Instead, the Japanese driver was credited with the second-best time on the Power Stage.
Hyundai remains only second fiddle
Toyota was no match for Hyundai on the Canary Islands, which was clearly inferior. Returning driver Daniel Sordo (Hyundai; 7th) initially took the lead of the Korean trio on Friday, but was caught by Adrien Fourmaux (Hyundai; 5th) on the very first stage on Saturday.
The Frenchman pulled away from his team-mates, and a 10-second penalty for a false start on the Power Stage did nothing to change that. Sordo had to deal with Thierry Neuville (Hyundai; 6th), who made a weak start to the rally. The former world champion went through with ease on Sunday, when part-time starter Sordo apparently decided to secure the manufacturer points.
Josh McErlean (M-Sport-Ford; 8th) drove a faultless rally and decided his team-internal duel against Jon Armstrong (M-Sport-Ford; 11th). The decision was made a little earlier than at the front: Armstrong had an off on the last Saturday stage. Fortunately for him, there were plenty of spectators on hand to get his car back on the track. He only lost two minutes of time.
In WRC2, there was the second Lancia victory in a row. Yohan Rossel (Lancia; 9th) dominated his class and drove to a commanding victory with a lead of 25.1 seconds. Behind him, his brother Leo Rossel (Citroen; 14th) and Alejandro Cachon (Toyota; 10th) battled it out for second place. A dramatic decision was made here when Leo Rossel dropped back to P5 in the WRC2 standings due to gearbox problems on the power stage.
The World Rally Championship is now moving back to mainland Europe. The Rally Portugal will take place from May 7 to 10.