Sebastien Ogier says that he could do nothing in order to avoid the puncture in Stage 22 , which costed him the eighth win of Rally Portugal, despite the fact that he strogly believes that he had everything under control.
Ogier managed to be the fastest driver in seven out of 23 stages at Rally Portugal and to take the lead at the end of Stage 8. Since then, he was fighting with Oliver Solberg, Sami Pajari and Thierry Neuville for the first place, but he dropped to second overall at the end of Stage 14 where Solberg became the new rally leader. However, he stole Solberg's lead after Stage 15 and gave a hard battle with Neuville in order to keep the first place on the overall classification, especially on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday, Ogier was able to increase his gap from the second Neuville, but bad luck stroke the first one in Stage 22 as he was forced to stop in order to change a rear right puncture on the penultimate stage of the rally resulting in dropping five places and eventually in finishing sixth overall. According to Ogier, he was not able to avoid the puncture due to the rocks that were in the line and probably Pajari punctured at the same place as Ogier. After the sixth WRC round, Ogier keeps the sixth place on the drivers' standings and is just two points ahead of Neuville on the championship.
"We had some tough luck today", Ogier said.
"In the beginning of this penultimate stage it was very rutted and there were some rocks in the line; I don’t think we could have done much differently.
"Everything that we could control this weekend, I think we did it pretty well, together with the team.
"I think we all deserved better, but that’s rallying sometimes.
"Of course, when you put in so much effort it’s frustrating, but we have to forget about it and go to Japan and look to get another win there".
Photo Credits: Toyota
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