MOTORSPORT: Citroen's ton of WRC glory

Citroen, with Sebastien Ogier back in its fold, has triumphed in the closest Monte Carlo Rally in history, becoming the first manufacturer to win 100 World Rally Championship events – in the year of its platinum jubilee to mark its centenary.

Despite throttle sensor problems on the last day of The Monte, Ogier (pictured) – world champion the past six years – beat Hyundai rival Thierry Neuville by 2.2sec after 300km of competition on snow, ice and dry asphalt.

It was the Frenchman’s seventh win in the WRC’s most prestigious round, equalling his countryman Sebastien Loeb’s tally, and his sixth success in a row – in three different makes (Volkswagen, Ford, and now Citroen, after his initial success in a Peugeot in 2009).

Belgian Neuville, runner-up to Ogier in the championship the past three seasons, paid the price for a mistake on the first full day of this year’s Monte, which cost him 15sec – time he admitted gave Ogier “a nice present”.

Ogier was “so happy” with his 44th WRC event win (still 35 behind Loeb) because “it is the rally I want to win the most in the season [as the first three of the four days are based in his hometown, Gap, in southern France]”.

He had led by only 0.4sec going into the last stage but was faster in his C3 than Neuville in his i20 Coupe on that stage, while Toyota recruit, Northern Irishman Kris Meeke, won that Power Stage in his Toyota Yaris.

Toyota’s Estonian Ott Tanak finished third in the rally, 2min 15.2sec behind Ogier after losing minutes on Friday because of a broken wheel rim. Tannak’s Finnish teammate Jari-Matti Latvala was fifth and Meeke sixth.

Loeb, fresh from third place in the marathon Dakar Rally in Peru as a Peugeot privateer, missed out on a podium in his Hyundai debut by 13sec, narrowly ahead of Latvala.

Loeb, who will drive six WRC rounds for the Korean manufacturer this year, won two stages but is fifth in the championship, behind Meeke because the Toyota man got the maximum five bonus points from the Power Stage.

Tanak won seven stages, Neuville three and Ogier and Latvala one each.

Hyundai leads the manufacturer standings while Citroen (whose Finnish recruit Esapekka Lappi was a non-finisher) and Toyota are equal and M-Sport, having lost Ogier and without a driver in the top 10 on the Monte, is already a distant fourth.

Wins have been scarce for Citroen since Loeb’s retirement from full-time rallying in 2012 but now with 100 it leads Ford on 91, Lancia 93, Toyota 50, Peugeot 48, Subaru 47, Volkswagen 44, Mitsubishi 34, Audi 24, Fiat 21 and Hyundai 10.

The next round of the WRC is its only pure winter rally, in Sweden, in mid-February.

Rain robs Briscoe of Daytona back-to-back
Treacherous rain cut short America’s main endurance race, the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona, with Australian Ryan Briscoe and Brisbane-born New Zealander Scott Dixon denied a second class win in a Ford GT.

British driver Richard Westbrook pitted the Ford after a long stint just before the event was red-flagged. The Chip Ganassi Racing entry had been leading but the fuel stop left it third, then a one-minute post-race penalty for not taking a mandatory full service dropped it to fourth.

Like many drivers, Westbrook felt the race (which earlier had an almost two hour stoppage and almost as long under caution during one of 17 yellow-flag periods) should have been stopped much sooner and called the loss of the GTLM class win “a real kick in the nuts”.

Victory in the class went to a BMW M8 ahead of a Ferrari 488 and a Porsche 911 RSR in which one of the drivers was New Zealander Earl Bamber.

BMW’s win came three days after the death of Karl ‘Charly’ Lamm, who oversaw many BMW victories in international motorsport by Schnitzer Motorsport.

Lead driver in the latest winning ‘Beemer’, Brazilian Augusto Farfus, is one of many now headed to Australia for this week’s Bathurst 12-Hour.

The other BMW M8 lost a lot of time because of problems with the steering wheel specially adapted for Alex Zanardi, the Italian who lost his legs almost 20 years ago.

Zanardi was a huge rap for Australian Chaz Mostert, one of his three co-drivers.

“Man, how good that kid is,” Zanardi said.

“He jumped in the car on Thursday and was at speed on his first lap. It always took me about six laps.”

The other GT class, GTD, also had three different makes represented on the podium – Lamborghini, Audi and Lexus – while Matt Campbell’s Porsche 911 GT3 R was a lap down and Simona De Silvestro’s all-female Acura NSX another 10 laps back in 13th.

Cadillac prototypes were first and second overall, with Fernando Alonso snatching the lead six minutes before the red flag, with one of Roger Penske’s Acuras and then a Nissan four laps down.

The Joest-prepared Mazdas that had been fast in qualifying imploded in the seventh hour – one with a fuel leak and the other a fire.

Aussie James Allen co-drove the third-placed Oreca in LMP2, although it was not running at the finish.

A Bird in the hand for Virgin
Audi customer team Virgin Racing’s Sam Bird won the third round of the Formula E electric open-wheeler championship ahead of India’s Mahindra Racing’s rookie Pascal Wehrlein and the Audi factory outfit’s Daniel Abt.

Temperatures in Santiago, Chile, were as scorching as at the Australian Open tennis, with British driver Bird maintaining his record of winning at least one race in each of five Formula E seasons.

He now leads this season’s standings with 41 points to Mahindra’s Belgian Jerome D’Ambrosio’s 41.

Portugal’s Antonio Felix Da Costa did not add to his score in Chile but has 28 points for BMW Andretti, whose other driver, Brit Alexander Sims, crossed the line third in Santiago but lost the place to Abt when given a time penalty for causing a collision.

Virgin Racing’s Dutchman Robin Frijns and Chinese team DS Techeetah’s defending champion, Jean-Eric Verge, also have 28 points, although the Frenchman was another not to collect a point at the weekend.

The fourth round is at Mexico’s Formula 1 circuit on February 16.