Ogier tops the Legends at the ’Ring

Sebastien Ogier warmed up for next week’s ADAC Rallye Deutschland in style with victory in the Legends section of the Volkswagen Scirocco R-Cup race at the Nurburgring in Germany yesterday.

Ogier joined former FIA World Rally Championship aces Markku Alen, Juha Kankkunen and Carlos Sainz in the 14-lap race around the 3.629-kilometre track. After qualifying in eighth place, Ogier dropped down the order following a collision with Polish driver Jakub Litwin. But his impressive recovery brought him up to fourth place at the finish.

“It was an action-packed race for me,” said Ogier. “I started the race from position eight, was heavily hit on lap two and lost two or three places. Afterwards, I attacked again and improved to fourth place. In the end, being involved in so many duels and overtaking manoeuvres was huge fun. Maybe it was even more exciting than doing lonely laps at the front of the field. The drivers delivered a very good show to the crowd and the performance level is really good. For me, it was a nice change and good preparation for Rallye Deutschland.”

Of Ogier’s Legends rivals, Sainz fought back from 22nd on the grid to finish 11th with Alen 19th and Kankkunen classified 25th and last following a collision with Moritz Oestreich two laps from the end. Ola Nilsson took overall honours from Volkswagen Motorsport junior driver and former Junior world championship star Kevin Abbring. Dennis Trebing was third.

Ogier, who will front Volkswagen’s maiden World Rally Car campaign from 2013 in Polo R WRC, will drive a Super 2000-specification Skoda Fabia on Rallye Deutschland, which gets underway with the opening stage on Friday (24 August).