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Tour de Corse: Ogier targets home win with outside shot of early title

Sebastien Ogier says is he fully concentrating on returning to form at his home World Rally Championship event at Corsica after two failures in the past two seasons as he lines up his first opportunity to seal a fourth consecutive world title.

If the Volkswagen Motorsport driver takes a first win on home soil since 2013 he has a chance of claiming a fourth WRC crown with three rounds to spare, but he will heavily rely on results of his rivals.

Ogier's fourth world title in WRC can be confirmed if Andreas Mikkelsen fails to score more than three points and the Hyundai duo of Hayden Paddon and Thierry Neuville register less than 19 points.

However, Ogier is not turning his immediate thoughts to the world title with the chances realistically unlikely at the Tour de Corse but is determined to return to winning ways to add to his three victories in 2016.

"Firstly, I hope that the weather on Corsica plays ball this year, after parts of the rally had to be cancelled last year due to torrential rain," Ogier said. "There are a number of new sections of route, and many of the special stages have been altered. As such, it is important to do an accurate Recce.

"I like these kind of changes, as it makes the rally a completely new challenge. On the whole, Corsica is far from an easy rally. As in Germany, where four drivers were still in contention towards the end of the rally, I expect the race on Corsica to be a similarly close affair.

"After Julien and I failed to hit top form here for the past two years, my own personal goal is to finally drive well again at the Rally France and to challenge for the win."

Zdroj: crash.net