Sébastien Ogier

Sébastien Eugène Emile Ogier (born 17 December 1983) is a French rally driver, competing for the Toyota Gazoo Racing Team in the World Rally Championship (WRC), who is currently teamed with the co-driver Vincent Landais.

He won the prestigious event for his first rally in a Kronos Peugeot 207 S2000.

Ogier's rally career began in 2005 when he won the French Federation's Rallye Jeunes and was rewarded with a place in the Peugeot 206 Cup for the following season.

Teamed with co-driver Julien Ingrassia, he claimed a podium at Terre des Cardabelles and sixth place in the championship along with the Best Rookie award.

In 2007, Ogier won the Peugeot 206 Cup with four victories (Diois, Langres, Causses, Touquet) and two second places (Alsace-Vosges, Limousin).

He also won the Rallye Hivernal des Hautes-Alpes.

In April 2007, he took part in his first regional rally (Rallye du Quercy) placing third overall in a Peugeot 206 XS.

Ogier received the Espoir Echappement de l’année award, an honorific prize from professionals and fans, joining past winners Didier Auriol, François Delecour and Sébastien Loeb.

The Frenchman continued in the Citroën Junior Team with the 2007 Formula One world champion Kimi Räikkönen as his new teammate.

He took fifth place in Sweden after a solid performance and clinched his second podium in Mexico after duelling against Petter Solberg until the last minute.

In Jordan he took an excellent start and was lying second in the standings after the first two legs, however team orders forced him to take several minutes of penalty at a time control.

He still ended in sixth position.

In Turkey, Sébastien led during eleven stages, before losing three minutes with a puncture in SS15, eventually finishing fourth.

At the Rally New Zealand, he came even closer to his maiden win as he was leading before the final stage, but spun three corners before the finish and lost the win to Latvala by 2.4 seconds (third smallest gap in the history).

Ogier went on to take his debut WRC victory in the next event, the Rally de Portugal.

Keeping the momentum from his performances in Turkey and New-Zealand, he took 45 seconds from road-sweeper Sébastien Loeb on day one.

Although Loeb came back, Ogier made no mistake and eventually beat him by 8 seconds.

In the 2008 season, Ogier moved to compete a full Junior World Rally Championship program, driving a Super 1600-class Citroën C2 for the Equipe de France FFSA team.

Ogier debuted in the World Rally Championship at the 2008 Rally Mexico, winning first in the JWRC class, and becoming the first JWRC driver to take a WRC point thanks to his eighth place overall finish.

He won again in Jordan: after a four-minute loss due to mechanical failure, he stormed back, eventually taking the victory when the leader went off the road.

After this second successive win, he retired from Rally Sardinia with a broken steering rod.

However, he restarted thanks to the SupeRally rule and finished fifth.

Ogier went on to take further junior category victory in Germany.

He then dominated his class at Rally Catalunya scoring most of the best times, but went off the road during the last leg.

After a cautious start at his home event, the Tour de Corse, Ogier clinched the Junior world champion title by placing second.

After winning the JWRC title, Ogier was rewarded with his first World Rally Car drive in a Citroën C4 for Rally GB.

He surprised the more experienced drivers by winning the first stage on the ice and taking a shock lead for his first WRC rally.

With the advantage of his road position, he kept the lead until the fifth stage, before losing time with a mechanical trouble.

He eventually crashed out from eighth place on day two.

In January 2009, Ogier made a one-off appearance in the Intercontinental Rally Challenge, contesting the Monte Carlo Rally.

It was only a one-off participation in IRC: for the 2009 season, Ogier was signed in WRC to capitalize on his Junior title.

At the start of the season, he was supposed to take part in the first six rounds of the world championship with a C4 WRC of Citroën's satellite team, and that the remaining rallies of the season would depend on his results.

Despite a few mistakes, his performances pushed the squad to confirm him for the rest of the season.

At the Acropolis Rally, Ogier drove to his first podium place, finishing second to Ford's Mikko Hirvonen.

In January 2010, Ogier took part again in the Rallye Monte-Carlo with a Peugeot 207 S2000.

After losing two minutes going off-road at the start of the race (on snow put by some spectators), he then scored a lot of stage wins and came back 45 seconds off the leader Mikko Hirvonen, but eventually retired on the last day with an alternator problem.

As Monte-Carlo was still part of the IRC calendar, Ogier's 2010 season really started in Sweden with the first round of the WRC year.

He has won the World Rally Drivers' Championship 8 times, in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2021.

Achieving 58 victories in the World Rally Championship and 8 titles, 6 of which were consecutive from 2013 to 2018, he is the 2nd most successful WRC driver after former Citroën WRC teammate Sébastien Loeb with 9 titles.

Furthermore, he is one of two drivers (together with Juha Kankkunen) to have won the World Championship with 3 different manufacturers.