While running into 2nd place at the end of the Friday stages, team tactics obliged Ogier to sweep the roads ahead of Loeb in Day 3, therefore being handed an 8-minute penalty in the overall classification. With this sacrifice, the reigning world champion found it easier to stay in front of Jari-Matti Latvala throughout the 6 stages on Saturday, while Ogier dropped from 2nd to 6th in the rally classification.
While visibly frustrated with Citroen's decision, Junior Team's manager Benoit Nogier announced that the team has secured the money for an additional event for Ogier in 2010 – as New Zealand was not part of his racing programme this year, due to lack of funds.
“Yes, it’s right, Sebastien (Ogier) will go to New Zealand, but we did not have the last answer for Kimi. We don’t think so, probably we will have only one car. I think it’s 80 per cent sure that Kimi won’t go,” said Nogier, while insisting that Ogier's last minute call was actually something that was decided from as early as Rally Mexico.
“We took the decision for Sebastien to go to New Zealand after Mexico because of the budget. We did not plan to go before because of the budget, but now we have found some sponsors to go,” added the French official.
So why didn't Citroen Junior announced this to the media shortly after Rally Mexico was over, and decided to wait until the end of Rally Jordan to do so (almost a month later)? Yeah, we know, we can't answer to that either (smiley face)...
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