Sebastien Ogier is being happy for breaking the record with the most victories at Rally de Portugal saying that he had no time to relax on his fight with Ott Tanak.
The eight-time WRC Champion has the same number of victories with Markku Alen in Portugal until last weekend where Ogier claimed his sixth win on this gravel event becoming the most successful driver there. In addition to that, his victory in Portugal was his 60th in World Rally Championship, but this result did not come easily as he had an intense battle with Ott Tanak. However, Tanak lost the lead of Rally Portugal at the end of Stage 13 where he suffered from a slow puncture resulting in Ogier becoming the new rally leader. Since then, the Toyota driver was managing his advantage over his rival despite the fact that Tanak closed their gap even more on Sunday. Ogier faced only an intercom issue in Stage 5 where Vincent Landais had to do hand signals to complete the stage, but beyond that the crew stayed out of trouble compared to their teammates. Last but not least, it must be mentioned that their next outings will be in Sardinia and in Poland and afterwards they will take a break, but it is speculated that they certainly will compete at CER and Rally Japan with Toyota GR Yaris Rally1.
"To take another win feels great", Ogier said.
"It’s nice to achieve some more cool numbers and I have to enjoy and cherish these moments.
"I had nothing against being tied on five wins for a few years with Markku Alén because for me he’s a legend and I have huge respect for him, but I’ve been asked many times when I was going to take the record and now finally it happened.
"It was another intense fight for everyone to follow and for us in the car there was no moment to relax.
"I think the way we managed everything was close to perfect: we could always stay in contention for the win without taking maximum risk when it didn’t feel 100 per cent".
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