Sébastien Ogier secured victory in the Rally de Portugal on Sunday, the fifth round of the World Rally Championship (WRC). It is his second consecutive victory, this time on gravel, following his win in the Rally de Croatia.
The event started with Thierry Neuville (Hyundai) leading after being the fastest in the super-special stage in Figueira da Foz on Thursday afternoon. Friday saw an exciting battle among a wide range of drivers: by the end of Special Stage 9 (Mortágua 2), the top four were separated by less than six seconds and the top six were within 18.1 seconds of each other.
At that time, the lead was held by Kalle Rovanperä (Toyota), with a one-second advantage over Ogier, followed by Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota) and Ott Tänak (Hyundai). Elfyn Evans was also in the mix, but a puncture in Special Stage 7 took the Toyota driver out of contention for the top spot.
Another setback on Saturday, with Rovanperä crashing in the first pass through Montim (Special Stage 11), which also took him out of the running. In the same stage, Neuville fell behind. Ogier inherited the lead, was overtaken by Tänak in the next stage in Amarante, before reclaiming the top spot in Special Stage 13 (Paredes 1).
Only 11.9s separated the top two at the start of the final day. Ogier started the Sunday better, with the fastest time in SS 19 (Cabeceiras de Basto 1), before Tänak won the next two stages to arrive at the Power Stage in Fafe with a chance of victory. The Estonian finished second in that stage, 0.1s behind Neuville, with Rovanperä in third. Ogier was fourth and only gave up 2.2s to Tänak. Katsuta closed out the top five in the Power Stage.
With these times, Ogier secured the rally win, beating Tänak by 7.9s. Neuville completed the podium 1m09.8s behind, while Adrien Fourmaux (M-Sport Ford) had another strong performance, returning to the top five with a fourth place finish ahead of Dani Sordo. The Hyundai driver entered this season with an encouraging fifth place ahead of Evans.
The best Rally2 finisher was Nikolay Gryazin (Citroën) in seventh, edging out Jan Solans (Toyota) by just 4.5s. The Spaniard won the rally for WRC2 and WRC2 Challenger, after an intense battle with Josh McEarlean (Skoda) which left the Irishman 3.2s behind. Lauri Joona (Skoda) finished third. In WRC3, Diego Domínguez Jr. (Ford) beat Mattéo Chattillon (Renault) by 48.9s. The Frenchman had a one-minute penalty, so he would have been the winner without that reprimand. Bruno Bulacia (Ford) completed the category podium.
The best of the Portuguese drivers was Armindo Araújo (Skoda), who finished with a clear lead of 14m02.7s over Ricardo Teodósio (Hyundai) and secured a 17th place overall. The rally for the Portuguese Rally Championship (CPR) ended on Friday at SS 9 in Mortágua, with Kris Meeke (Hyundai) dominating: he won by 1m24s ahead of José Pedro Fontes (Citroën), with Araújo in third.
