Vodafone Rally de Portugal 2021

33 www.rallydeportugal.pt 20-23 / 05 / 2021 33 W ith three rallies held in the 2021 season, the World Champion Sébastien Ogier (Toyota) arrives in Portugal at the top of the World Rally Championship. But more than extending his advantage in relation to his rivals, the French driver seeks to consolidate a record that is already his, ex aequo with Marku Alen. If he wins, he will have six victories in the Automóvel Club de Portugal rally. It remains to be seen if his rivals will allow it. The Frenchman, who has won the ACP rally on five occasions (twice with Citroën, twice with Volkswagen and once with Ford) is looking for his sixth win. If he does it, he will achieve another feat: winning with another manufacturer, Toyota. The Vodafone Rally de Portugal is certainly special for the World Champion. However, there are three other drivers who have already won the WRC event. Two compete with the Hyundai i20 WRC and one of them, Ott Tänak, is the only other active driver with a World Title to his name, besides Ogier. The third driver to have won in Portugal is Mads Østberg, who will be behind the wheel of a Citroën C3 Rally2. In the championship scoring table, Ogier leads with 61 points, nine more than the runner-up, Thierry Neuville. A driver who will certainly be trying to recover from the Croatia Rally, event in which he lost the victory in the last section, is Elfyn Evans. The British Toyota driver is third in the World Championship, with 51 points and wants to continue to maintain the pace he has already shown on asphalt, this time in the gravel tests of Central and Northern Portugal. Trying to make up for the points lost earlier in the year is Ott Tänak. The Estonian driver is the only one beside Ogier to have won a Rally this year but he dropped, making him fourth, 21 points behind the leader. The championship has been dominated by Toyota and Hyundai, manufacturers which dominate the WRC top 7. Ford has Adrien Fourmaux and Gus Greensmith in eighth and seventh place, respectively, but the make will try to maintain the more competitive pace shown in Croatia, a rally in which M-Sport has achieved the best results of the season so far. LEADER OGIER LOOKING FOR A NEW RECORD