Ogier wins in France!

Citroen takes maiden victory on home soil to close up in world title fight

Sebastien Ogier, in a Citroen DS3 WRC, has won Rallye de France Alsace for the first time following a nail-biting finish to the world championship qualifier near Strasbourg this afternoon.

Ogier fended off the MINI John Cooper Works WRC of Spaniard Dani Sordo on the event-closing Power Stage in Sebastien Loeb’s hometown of Haguenau. The seven time-world champion wasn’t in action following his retirement on Friday morning when his factory Citroen suffered a rare engine failure.

Victory for Ogier and co-driver Julien Ingrassia marked their fifth triumph of 2011 following wins in Portugal, Jordan, Greece and Germany earlier in the campaign. The result also puts Ogier back into contention for the drivers’ world title with two events remaining.

Petter Solberg, in a privateer Citroen, finished third with Mikko Hirvonen the first factory Ford driver home in fourth to maintain his championship bid.

Power Story glory for Latvala

Jari-Matti Latvala has won the Rallye de France Alsace Power Stage, the first time he has triumphed on one of the live television spectaculars this season.

Latvala, who began the run with a two-minute time penalty for checking in early at the pre-stage regroup to promote factory Ford team-mate and title chaser Mikko Hirvonen into fourth overall, was 2.1s faster than Dani Sordo, who claimed the first Power Stage points for the works MINI squad.

French star Sebastien Ogier secured his maiden world championship victory on home soil in his Citroen in third place with Hirvonen fourth quickest, 2.5s slower than Latvala, despite reporting making a small mistake in his Fiesta.

Mads Ostberg lost time when he damaged the front-right tyre on his M-Sport Stobart Fiesta early in the stage. As a result the Norwegian had to adopt a cautious approach to make it to the end of the test.