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Michelin deliver more WRC success

Sébastien Ogier's title-winning success at last week's Dayinsure Wales Rally GB took Michelin's haul of world-class motorsport titles to an impressive 51.

Michelin is an official partner of the WRC and thanks to the French company's rubber, Ogier's third-place finish in Wales was enough to seal the Frenchman's fifth WRC drivers' title. The result also handed the M-Sport World Rally Team its first WRC manufacturers' crown in a decade.

"I would like to congratulate Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia for the first-class performance they have put on this season, and also M-Sport boss Malcolm Wilson, who, together with his squad, also won the championship in 2007 competing with BFGoodrich - another Michelin Group brand," Michelin Motorsport Director Pascal Couasnon said.

Nine of the top-ten cars at the finish of Rally GB relied on Michelin's soft compound LTX Force S5 rubber to successfully get them through 21 wet and muddy stages (totalling 306.98 competitive kilometres) in North Wales and the company said it was pleased with the performance and versatility of the tyres it developed for the 2017 season.

Jacques Morelli, manager of Michelin's WRC programme, said: "We designed this tyre to be sure of delivering the most effective trade-off between performance, durability and strength for the different types of gravel encountered in the course of the year, while also covering a wide range of temperatures and weather.

"Our approach was to target the best possible balance for the year and Michelin Motorsport's engineers did a tremendous job by making progress in some of the areas that contribute to the quality of a strong rally tyre, while maintaining the other parameters at the same high level as before."

Michelin also celebrated Pontus Tidemand's WRC 2 success at Rally GB as the Swede used the firm's rubber to win the category in his Skoda Motorsport Fabia R5.

Zdroj: wrc.com