An emotional end to the era. I used to think Ogier was too arrogant to be likeable but I’ve warmed to him over the years, perhaps because he’s mellowed and taken the likes of Evans under his wing.
So I’ll actually miss his and Ingrassia’s presence next year. I won’t miss the metronomic predictably of a French Sebastian winning another championship. There’s been 18 years of that broken up by Ott Tanak once.
Right now, Ogier has Monaco on the cards next year and a couple of unspecified rallies next season, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he acquiesces to his wife’s wish and quits properly now that he finishes with a rally win and an 8th championship in frankly the best formula that’s ever graced the modern sport.
I don’t think they’ll ever be matched again and every end of stage interview featured the drivers mourning the end of these beasts. The hybrids will be spectacular in their own way but I can’t help feel this era is the final pinnacle of the pure combustion engine.
I’ve been thinking lately that the only way we’ll end up preserving that feeling and that guttural noise is through sim racing. Another decade or two and it’ll be entirely distant relation to the thing it is now.