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Ogier satisfied with Italy performance

Sébastien Ogier said he was satisfied with his performance at Rally Italia Sardegna last weekend, despite losing out on a fourth victory at the event by less than a second.

The M-Sport Ford World Rally Team driver was leading by 0.8sec going into the Live TV Power Stage on Sunday afternoon, but a small mistake allowed Hyundai's Thierry Neuville to snatch the win by 0.7sec.

"There were huge ruts at the end of the stage and huge rocks at some points," Ogier told wrc.com. "At a very slow left-right corner I came out of the ruts and I got stuck for maybe a second."

The Frenchman conceded that his Power Stage error could be where he lost the rally, but he also admitted other frustrating mistakes proved costly.

"There were many things in the weekend, the most frustrating would be probably to stall on the start line on SS13 where I lost three seconds very stupidly," he said. "When you see the final result, you think about all these small things.

"But I fought really hard and I didn't do any major mistakes. When you push so hard like this of course you miss the lines. I can be satisfied with the job done anyway."

The defending world champion also felt the seventh round of the championship highlighted some of the improvements that need to be made to make his Fiesta more competitive in specific conditions.

He explained: "We need to work a bit more because I think I was doing a good job but I was always losing little tenths here and there - especially when it became slow and technical."

Ogier will start second on the road at Neste Rally Finland (26-29 July) - a position he's unfamiliar with. But he's happy to hand the road opening responsibility to Neuville.

"In one way, we cannot afford a bad result any more - we need to be good. But on the other hand, I also know there are most probably a lot of rallies ahead where we will not have the disadvantage of opening the road and honestly this weight I have always had on my shoulders in these last years - I'm happy not to have it," he added.

Zdroj: wrc.com