Sebastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia will not restart Rally Finland on the last day of the race. The crew withdraw from the Saturday leg but there was a chance to continue racing tomorrow and fight for points in the Power stage. Ingrassia though will need time to recover from Friday’s crash.
“After further medical examinations and with the next round of the FIA World Rally Championship being so close, the team – in conjunction with advice from the organisers – have decided that Sebastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia will take no further part in this weekend’s Rally Finland”, M-Sport announced.
“The main objective is now to ensure that co-driver Ingrassia has the best opportunity to be fully fit for Rallye Deutschland where the championship battle is set to continue.”
Sebastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia will not restart Rally Finland on the last day of the race
Unfortunately we won’t be able to start tomorrow@RallyFinland #WRC pic.twitter.com/6fHXW6FNsF
— Sébastien Ogier (@SebOgier) July 29, 2017
Meanwhile, their teammates Teemu Suninen and Elfyn Evans are fighting for the podium in Finland. The Finn is second – 49.1sec behind rally leader Esapekka Lappi. He has a 4.3sec advantage in front of Juho Hanninen. Evans is fourth – only 1.3sec behind the Toyota driver. Ott Tanak is 7th, more than 2 minutes behind Lappi.
“I’m feeling good today. When I had a good feeling on the stages the times have been really good, but it was a disappointment to have lost so much time on Ouninpohja this morning. We lost about 20 seconds at a chicane and that has a big effect now as the fight is really tight.
“Tomorrow, I think all of us will have to keep the same pace as today if not more. I’ll continue to focus on my own driving – on keeping a good rhythm and on not making any mistakes”, Suninen said.
Evans added: “It will be an exciting day tomorrow. It’s fair to say that we were struggling yesterday, but it’s been a pretty positive day for us today.”
“Everything seems to have come together and we’ve been happy with our performance on most of the stages.”
“The conditions suited us a bit better today. We also found a better balance with the car which helped regain some of the confidence we had been lacking previously.”
“It’s game on for tomorrow so let’s see what we can do.”
