Volkswagen’s Jari-Matti Latvala has won Rallye de France-Alsace in the process notching up his first ever victory on asphalt and slashing Sebastien Ogier’s championship lead.
Latvala began the event 50 points behind Ogier, but with the Frenchman hitting trouble on Friday he now cuts that gap to 27 points with two events to go and a maximum 56 points still up for grabs.
“It feels really, really good [to get this win],” said Latvala, who should really have won on Rallye Deutschland back in August, but he crashed on the final day.
“Starting this day after the mistake in Germany, I was really nervous, I had to learn the lesson,” he continued.
“It’s important we are still in the fight for the championship [too] for everyone, the fans and the drivers etc. I have been waiting a long time for the tarmac win and have worked hard to get it and here we are!”
Latvala took the lead in the very first stage on Friday, before Andreas Mikkelsen demoted him to second in SS2. Latvala then re-took the position in SS3 and headed into the mid-day halt just 0.7 seconds ahead.
On the repeat loop, Latvala eased ahead a bit, concluding the opening leg with an 8.5 second cushion.
The Finn then proceeded to almost double that on Saturday morning, with three stage wins in succession. Two more stage wins followed in the afternoon, with Latvala stretching the gap to 28 seconds.
It meant he could take it relatively easy on the final day, eventually finishing 44.8 seconds up on Mikkelsen, with the VW Motorsport II pilot also opting for caution through the final tests.
Championship leader Ogier, in contrast, had a nightmare event, with a faulty sensor costing him 4 minutes in SS2. The Frenchman’s woes were then compounded by a 4 minute penalty for checking in early to the SS3 time control and in the afternoon on Friday he broke a front left damper, leaving well down and out of contention.
His only hope of points after that were in the Power Stage and he took all three, finishing an impressive 9.5 seconds up on M-Sport’s Elfyn Evans in second and 12.9 seconds up on Latvala in third. He was 13th overall, but despite all that remains favourite to take the title.
Meanwhile, Kris Meeke put in a good drive to take the final podium spot and his fourth rostrum of the season. The Ulsterman ran in third from SS2 onwards in his Citroen DS3 WRC and posted top-five times in all but one of the 14 stages on days one and two as he consolidated his position. At the end he was just over a minute off Latvala and 20.5 seconds off Mikkelsen.
Dani Sordo secured fourth for Hyundai, although only after Robert Kubica dramatically went off in the final stage. The Pole had moved ahead this morning in SS15 and had 11 seconds in hand until he crashed out in SS18.
M-Sport WRT #1 Mikko Hirvonen completed the top-five, 12 seconds further back and a minute up on team-mate Elfyn Evans, who picked up a 1 minute 40 second penalty on Friday when his cars electronics failed after SS3 and he was late into the mid-day service.
Mads Ostberg slipped behind Evans in the Power Stage, when he got distracted by a noise and went off, although he did get it home and take P7.
Further back, Thierry Neuville recovered from his turbo issues on Friday to take eighth in his Hyundai, with team-mate and ‘third driver’ Bryan Bouffier ninth and Ford privateer Martin Prokop tenth.
In WRC2, Quentin Gilbert took the win, leading for most of the event in his Fiesta R5 and finishing 8.1 seconds up on Bernardo Sousa. Sebastien Chardonnet was third, albeit almost 2 minutes further adrift.
The WRC now heads to Spain later this month for the penultimate round, which runs from October 23-25.
To view the result for Rallye de France-Alsace 2014 – CLICK HERE.
