World champion Sébastien Ogier believes it will be hard to better his 2015 achievements in the FIA World Rally Championship.
Ogier ended the campaign with his eighth victory of the season at Wales Rally GB yesterday, having secured his third consecutive world title in Australia in September with three rounds to spare.
Only a rare mistake at the penultimate event in Spain last month, when he crashed out of the lead in the final stage, denied Ogier a ninth win from 13 rounds and he admitted it would be tough to improve on this year.
“We finished the best way we could. It’s been a fantastic season, with only a small mistake in Spain otherwise it could have been nine victories. Our level of performance was very high and it will be difficult to make it better,” he said.
“I’m still hungry for victories. It’s my personality that when I enter a competition I want to give my best all the time. I will never be the one who does it halfway. It will be difficult to achieve better and to stay on the same level of performance would be perfect.”
The Frenchman picked out August’s ADAC Rallye Deutschland victory as his best. After his Volkswagen team failed to win its home event in 2013 and 2014, Ogier led a clean sweep of the podium places.
“The highlight of the season is always the title because that’s target number one. To achieve that you need victories and, of course, they’re all enjoyable but some are better than others.
“For me the first one this year was Germany. I wanted to achieve that for my team because all I’ve achieved is thanks to them. It’s about teamwork and it brings me a lot of satisfaction to win this one, more for them than for me.
“Then Monte-Carlo. It’s always cool to win there because it’s my home event and it’s the most challenging of the season,” he added.