WRC Monza: The Good, The Bad and an eight-time world champion

Top Performer - Sebastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia 

The titanic wrestle waged between Toyota team-mates Sebastien Ogier and Elfyn Evans for victory at Rally Monza could have earned both drivers the top gong last weekend. 

But it would be unjust not to ribbon Top Performer to Ogier and Ingrassia, the pair emerging from a thrilling fight with Evans and Scott Martin to lift a an emotional eighth world title in their final event together as Ingrassia hangs his helmet up for good. It was a goodbye of sorts too for Ogier, who will only races selected rallies next year.

PLUS: How Ogier emerged out of Loeb\'s shadow to form his own WRC legend

Ogier and Ingrassia displayed what the WRC will miss next season, as the duo only needed to finish sixth or higher to seal the title. But they went on to produce a vintage performance to win the rally. 

Despite insisting he was only focusing on himself and not the wrestle with Evans, Ogier managed to not only see off his title rival but moreover deal with the pressure and emotion of his last endangerment to win flipside world title.

After a wrestle that saw the lead switch between Ogier and Evans six times, the former came out on top by 7.3 seconds. The only vandalize came when the Frenchman clipped a touchable barrier, marking out a machinations on Monza’s famous banking, that could have derailed the fairytale finish to his full-time WRC career.

Elfyn Evans, Scott Martin, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota Yaris WRC

Photo by: Toyota Racing

Honourable mentions - Elfyn Evans and Oliver Solberg 

Evans deserves huge credit for reeling in Ogier in the second half the season to whittle lanugo a 44-point deficit to just 17, taking the title fight to the final round. 

The Welshman moreover warrants upper praise for his fighting momentum throughout Rally Monza, as the 32-year-old did everything he could to wield pressure on Ogier in a bid to gravity a mistake that would wrestle the title away. 

Evans starred on the Monza spin stages on Friday and Saturday that left him just half a second overdue his rival heading into Sunday. A mistake on the penultimate stage forfeit him a shot at the rally victory, but it was nonetheless an worshipped performance which created a fascinating finale.

Likewise, Hyundai’s Oliver Solberg is worthy of mention on only his fourth outing in a full WRC car, scoring his weightier result to stage courtesy of a fine momentum to fifth. 

The Swede competed the loftiness with only one small scare, but increasingly importantly the son of 2003 world champion Petter Solberg was worldly-wise to match his increasingly experienced Hyundai team-mates. 

“I want to siphon on!” said Solberg.  “When you have a car like the Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC, you just don’t want to stop driving it. This has been such a cool, such a fantastic week. 

“I think the speed we had was good here. To be worldly-wise to fight with my team-mates was increasingly than I was expecting, to be honest.”

Sure enough, Solberg will have far increasingly WRC opportunities next year having secured a seat in the team’s third car slantingly Dani Sordo.       

Oliver Solberg, Elliott Edmondson, Hyundai 2C Competition Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC

Photo by: Austral / Hyundai Motorsport

Lucky Escapes

There is a good endangerment Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville would have ended the season finale third overall, had it not been for striking a windbreak on a right-hand corner early in Stage 9.

The Belgian won Stage 8 on Saturday in the Bergamo mountains, but came unstuck just 0.5kms into the next test. Amazingly, he was worldly-wise to protract without a drop-off in pace - but the time lost in the incident ultimately forfeit him a podium to team-mate Sordo. 

M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux was lucky an wrecking on Stage 3 was not as serious as the produce looked.

The Frenchman, struggling with a mix of nonflexible and soft tyres on his Fiesta, clipped a when at a tight left-hander which triggered a slow roll. The car sooner came to rest perched perilously on top of an armco windbreak guarding a steep hillside.  

As mentioned older Ogier, was moreover lucky to escape a slight wrangling with a touchable barrier.

Sébastien Ogier, Julien Ingrassia, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota Yaris WRC with the tem

Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images

Team of the Week - Toyota 

Toyota rounded off the WRC season in style with a Rally Monza one-two as Ogier edged Evans, the pair finishing in that order in the world championship standings. The team moreover clinched the manufacturers’ crown without losing out to Hyundai last season, marking a successful first year with new superabound Jari-Matti Latvala at the helm.

The team executed a perfect strategy to seal the title, asking Kalle Rovanpera to sacrifice his rally to indulge Ogier and Evans a fair, no-holds-barred fight to decide the drivers’ crown. Rovanpera crush conservatively - or, as he put it, ”like driving your nan to church” - just in specimen one of his team-mates fell off the road and left a window for Hyundai to exploit.

“We have been working so nonflexible to requirement the manufacturers’ championship and the drivers’ and co-drivers’ championships all at the same time,\" said Latvala. 

“I am so grateful for the team. We have such a fantastic team with unconfined people and the weightier drivers in the championship. I’m really proud of all the team members and the crews.”    

Top Tweets

As highlighted earlier, Rovanpera was forced to momentum with his hands tied in a manner of speaking. But when the shackles were removed on the final stage, he gave the Monza fans plenty to cheer about. 

He cited this moment “as a problem with the pacenotes”, as quite unmistakably evidenced below.

There is a strict no smoking policy in the Monza paddock, but nobody told Oliver Solberg clearly.

WRC cars attacking Monza’s iconic financial has to be arguably one of the finest sights in motorsport. It was therefore a fitting send-off for the current generation of cars, dubbed the \'Modern Group B\'.

Hot Shots 

Sébastien Ogier, Julien Ingrassia, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota Yaris WRC

Photo by: Toyota Racing

Adrien Fourmaux, Alexandre Coria, M-Sport Ford WRT Ford Fiesta WRC

Photo by: M-Sport

Oliver Solberg, Elliott Edmondson, Hyundai 2C Competition Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC

Photo by: Vincent Thuillier / Hyundai Motorsport

Winner and Champion Sébastien Ogier, Julien Ingrassia, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota Yaris WRC

Photo by: Toyota Racing

Takamoto Katsuta, Aaron Johnston, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota Yaris WRC

Photo by: Toyota Racing

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