Q&A with Sébastien Ogier

Sebastien Ogier scored his fifth world championship win of 2011 on Rallye de France Alsace.

The French ace spoke about the pressure he was under to uphold Citroen honour following team leader Sebastien Loeb’s retirement.

Sebastien, congratulations on win number seven in your career and on home soil! How are you feeling?

“Very good for sure. There is a lot of stress coming out now. This weekend was very long for me after the problem of Seb [Loeb] and there was lot of pressure on me. I absolutely had to finish this event and I absolutely had to score points for the team. Dani and Petter made life a bit difficult for me and it was very difficult to take the lead and difficult to beat them. Congratulations first to Dani, he was very fast all weekend. Petter unfortunately had a puncture but he was very fast before then.”

You mentioned pressure. How much pressure were you feeling this weekend to achieve a good result for yourself and the team after Loeb retired? It must be a great sense of relief that you won?

“I’m really happy with the outcome of this race. I did exactly what I had to do by looking at Dani and the split times. I took the lead but I did not take the risk. In the past it has not been about pressure situations. I Argentina when I was 50 seconds in front I just made a stupid mistake. In rallying it can happen all the time but this weekend all the things were perfect for us. It was a big shame for our team-mate because it was his home rally but that’s motorsport.”

This result puts you just three points behind Sebastien Loeb in the championship. What do you think your chances are?

“You can see now the championship is very close between three drivers. Everything can happen for sure this weekend there was a lot of drama especially on the first day and anything can happen to anybody on the next event. For me I continue like this to try to do my best behind the wheel. Then we will see what happens.”

Olivier Quesnel, your team boss at Citroen, has said the team will still favour Loeb over you for the title. What is your feeling about this?

“Honestly for the moment I just want to celebrate this victory and think about this perfect weekend we have just done. Then I will have some holiday before Spain and take a lot of relaxation and see what happens in Spain.”

It’s been an intense battle between you, Sordo and Solberg here in France. What has the atmosphere been like between you all at service and the regroups?

“Of course most of the time it’s like this in rallying and that is one reason why I like rallying because it’s always very close between the drivers. We’re not fighting each other like on the tracks like in Formula One so maybe it is more easy but it is good fun and normally we will have a party tonight.”