The Frenchman was leading the overall classification ahead of teammate Sebastien Loeb with a few more stages to go, but lost control of his DS3 WRC in the first stage of Sunday and had to call it a day. His car was damaged beyond repair and instead of scoring 25 points and his first win of the season, Ogier is now 6th overall in the WRC classification after two rounds.
However, the Frenchman insisted that what happened in Mexico is part of rallying and that nothing is lost after only two rounds.
“For sure at this moment we pushed very, very hard,” insisted Ogier, who battled against teammate Loeb throughout the North American event, both pushing their cars to the limit. “We had a very good rhythm, the feeling was very good in the car, but it's always like this – just one mistake and it's finished, that's the law in rallying.”
In the overall classification, Ford's Mikko Hirvonen continues to lead the pack on 46 points, 9 more than Loeb. Ogier's retirement cost him some valuable points in the standings, where he is now trailing Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala, Stobart's Mads Ostberg and privateer Petter Solberg after two rounds.
“For sure I lost good points this weekend, but the season is still long. Now we're going to have a very good starting position for the next gravel event. So it's not finished,” insisted Ogier. “It's just the start of the season and we know that we have the speed, and now we have to finish the rallies and get the points.”
The upcoming round in the 2011 WRC is scheduled to take place in Portugal, between March 24-27. And it will be a sweet site to come back to for Ogier, as this is where he recorded his first WRC win in career, last year.
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