Sebastien Ogier has crashed out of the Central European Rally on the penultimate stage, handing Ott Tanak a strong chance for a second World Rally Championship victory of the season.
Ogier was locked in an intense fight with Tanak for the victory, having lost his overnight rally lead to the Hyundai rival after overshooting a junction on stage 15, the first of four Sunday tests.
It left the eight-time world champion trailing Tanak by 1.9s, although Ogier was able to reduce the gap to 1.5s after stage 16.
But Ogier’s fight for the victory soon came unstuck in spectacular fashion on stage 17, the second pass through Am Hochwald that had caught the Toyota driver out earlier this morning.
Just six hundred metres into the stage Ogier drifted wide in a fast right-hander resulting in heavy impact with the trees that sent his GR Yaris across the road and into retirement.
Ogier and co-driver Vincent Landais emerged from incident unscathed but the former was clearly angered by the mistake.
The retirement looks set to hand Tanak a rally win and boost Hyundai’s hopes in the manufacturers’ title race with Ogier losing the provisional 18 points he accrued after leading the rally at the end of Saturday.
DRAMA ⚠️@SebOgier is off the road 0.6km into SS17. Crew OK ✅
— FIA World Rally Championship (@OfficialWRC) October 20, 2024
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Tanak now leads the rally by 9.4s from Toyota's Elfyn Evans with championship leader Thierry Neuville climbing to third, 40.8s adrift. The trio will now pick up 18, 15 and 13 Saturday points respectively if they can reach the end of the rally.
Evans set the fastest time on stage 17 by a second from Tanak with Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta third fastest, three seconds slower than Evans.
Katsuta headed the Super Sunday standings by 0.6s from Tanak and is on course to close the gap further on his championship leading team-mate Neuville, ensuring the title fight will be decided in Japan next month.
M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux sat in third [+1.1s} in the standings after enjoying far stronger run in his better handling Ford Puma, with Evans fourth and Neuville set to claim five points in fifth [+6.8s.].
The rally will conclude following this afternoon’s Power Stage.
