2018 World Rally Championship: Ogier's Sixth Title and Toyota's First Crown Since 1999

The 2018 season was the 46th of the World Rally Championship, and it began with the defending champions chasing a sixth title. Sebastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia took it in the final round, while Toyota ended its long wait for the manufacturers' crown. Between those results came a season of new rules, a new Turkish rally and a title race that changed hands from one rally to the next.

What was the 2018 World Rally Championship?

It was the 46th season of the World Rally Championship, a championship recognised by the FIA as the top tier of international rallying. Thirteen events ran from the Monte Carlo Rally in January to Rally Australia in November, and only manufacturers using 2017-specification cars could score manufacturers' points.

Ogier and Ingrassia started as defending champions after their fifth consecutive titles at the 2017 Wales Rally GB. M-Sport, which had won the manufacturers' title that year, also began the season as the defending team.

Four wins for Ogier, four for Tanak, three for Neuville, and a sixth title for Ogier that arrived with Toyota's first crown since 1999.

Why did the calendar change?

The Rally of Poland was removed after repeated safety concerns, and the Rally of Turkey returned for the first time since 2010. Great Britain and Catalunya swapped places on the schedule, which made Rally Catalunya the penultimate round.

The Turkish event was based in Marmaris in Mugla Province, with its route running along the Mediterranean coastline. Earlier editions had been based in Istanbul, so the rally moved back to the south-west of the country.

Rallye Deutschland moved to a new headquarters, with its service park at the Bostalsee reservoir in Saarland. Monte Carlo was heavily revised, with half the route brand new, and Rally Mexico returned to its traditional start in Guanajuato after beginning in Mexico City the year before.

The Tour de Corse was also heavily revised, with only two of its seven stages run as they had been in 2017. Its headquarters moved to Bastia, which hosted the event for the first time since 1978. Wales Rally GB announced a heavily revised route as well, made possible by new British legislation allowing public roads to be used for motorsport.

Which teams and crews changed for 2018?

Citroen cut back to two full-time entries plus a selected third car, while Ford increased its factory support for M-Sport, marking its first return to the sport since 2012. Hyundai signed Andreas Mikkelsen full time, and Toyota added Ott Tanak and Martin Jarveoja to its line-up.

Citroen made its C3 WRC available to privateers, with the cars leased to drivers and run by its sister team PH Sport, so the manufacturer kept control of them. Sebastien Loeb and Daniel Elena returned for selected rounds, having helped develop the C3 WRC on loose surfaces. Stephane Lefebvre moved to WRC2 in an R5 version of the car.

Citroen ended the season of Kris Meeke and Paul Nagle after six rounds, pointing to a disproportionately high number of crashes and a lack of self-control. Mads Ostberg and Torstein Eriksen replaced them from Rally Finland onwards.

At Hyundai, Mikkelsen and Anders Jaeger returned full time after being left without a seat when Volkswagen withdrew at the end of 2016. The third car was split between Hayden Paddon and Dani Sordo, and Sordo changed co-driver to Carlos del Barrio, ending a four-year partnership with Marc Marti.

At Toyota, Tanak and Jarveoja replaced Juho Hanninen and Kaj Lindstrom. Hanninen took a test-driver role and Lindstrom joined the team's management. M-Sport promoted Teemu Suninen and Mikko Markkula from its WRC2 team and hired Bryan Bouffier for his knowledge of Monte Carlo and Corsica.

What rule changes came in 2018?

The FIA took responsibility for where artificial chicanes could be placed, and it set rules for their width and how often they could be used. A new Power Stage rule also ended the practice of checking in late, after deliberate late check-ins in Sweden and Mexico.

The chicane rules followed criticism of the chicanes used at the 2017 Rally Finland. Drivers had called them too narrow, poorly positioned and potentially dangerous.

Privateers running 2017-specification World Rally Cars could now enter under their own team names. The WRC Trophy was closed to older cars. Under the Power Stage change, any crew checking in late forfeited its chance to score on that stage, removing the reason to accept time penalties for better conditions.

Round-by-round results

How did the early rounds shape the title fight?

Ogier won Monte Carlo and Mexico, Neuville won Sweden, and Ogier added Corsica to his tally in a round where Tanak and Neuville finished second and third. By the end of that stretch the championship lead had changed hands more than once.

Ogier and Ingrassia won Monte Carlo, their fifth victory in the event. Tanak and Jarveoja finished second on their Toyota debut, and Latvala and Anttila completed the podium. Meeke was fourth with the fastest Power Stage time, despite a spin into a ditch on the opening stage.

Attrition shaped the rally. Neuville went off on the same stage as Meeke and finished fifth, Lappi lost half a minute on the final stage and dropped from fourth to seventh, and Sordo retired from third on Saturday morning after going off in snowy conditions.

Neuville won in Sweden, his seventh world rally and his first on snow, which gave him the drivers' lead by ten points. He became only the third non-Nordic driver to win the event, after Sebastien Loeb and Sebastien Ogier. Breen finished second, a career-best result, and Hyundai took first and third to lead the manufacturers' championship for the first time.

Ogier won in Mexico, his second victory of the season, despite a ten-second penalty for cutting a chicane. That win recaptured the championship lead from Neuville by four points. Neuville finished sixth after losing twenty seconds to fuel pressure and power steering problems.

In Corsica, Ogier and Ingrassia took their third win of the year. Sordo and Evans finished fourth and fifth, separated by 3.5 seconds, and Lappi hit a kerb and changed a punctured tyre on Saturday before winning the final Power Stage and climbing to sixth.

Who won in Argentina and Portugal?

Tanak and Jarveoja won Argentina, Toyota's first victory with the team, and Neuville won Portugal after a four-day battle. Neuville's Portugal result was his first there and his eighth WRC victory, and it gave him a nineteen-point championship lead.

In Argentina, Neuville and Sordo finished second and third, which lifted Hyundai further ahead in the manufacturers' table. Ogier finished fourth and his drivers' lead shrank to ten points. Mikkelsen was fifth, Evans sixth in another Fiesta and Meeke seventh after a puncture while in contention for a podium.

Latvala retired on Friday after suspension and lubrication damage to his Yaris, and Breen rolled his Citroen on Saturday. In Portugal, Tanak retired on the first gravel stage after damaging the cooling system on a large rock, and Ogier failed to score any points.

Neuville took over the championship lead in Portugal. Evans and Suninen both finished on the podium for Ford, which narrowed the gap to Hyundai to thirteen points. Lappi won the Power Stage but received a ten-second penalty for displacing bales on SS9, which cost him fourth place to Sordo.

How did Sardinia and Finland change the standings?

Neuville beat defending champion Ogier on the final stage of Sardinia, extending his championship lead to twenty-seven points. Tanak then won Finland, his second win of the season, and closed to within twenty-five points of Neuville.

The margin of 0.7 seconds in Sardinia tied the 2017 Rally Argentina for the third-tightest winning margin in WRC history at the time. Lappi finished third and Paddon fourth, and Hyundai moved twenty-eight points ahead of M-Sport in the manufacturers' championship.

Tanak's radiator damage on Friday cost him a forty-second penalty in Sardinia, and he still finished ninth. In Finland he took a Power Stage win and the rally, with Ostberg second, 2.8 seconds ahead of Latvala. Paddon was fourth after Lappi went off on SS20, while Neuville still led the championship by twenty-one points over Ogier.

What happened in Germany and Turkey?

Tanak won Germany, his second consecutive win there, and followed it with a third straight victory in Turkey. Tanak moved up to second in the standings behind Neuville, who still led the championship, after a rally in which several title contenders went out.

In Germany, Ogier was the main challenger until he clipped a boulder on the second run through Panzerplatte. He had to change a damaged wheel and dropped to eighth. Sordo and Latvala both retired on stage 16, and Neuville and Lappi finished second and third. Neuville's second place extended his lead to 23 points.

Ogier recovered to fourth with a final-day charge and a Power Stage win, while Kalle Rovanpera, then seventeen, scored points in WRC2. In Turkey, Neuville had led after the first leg, but his suspension failed on Saturday morning, and Ogier took the lead before going off two stages later.

Latvala finished second for Toyota, which took the lead of the manufacturers' championship, and Paddon was third. Suninen took fourth ahead of Mikkelsen, who had led until his transmission failed. Breen's car caught fire and burned out after he had been an early leader.

How did Wales Rally GB and Catalunya end the season's middle?

Ogier snatched the Wales Rally GB win from Latvala by 10.6 seconds after Tanak's radiator was damaged while he led. In Catalunya, Loeb won in a Citroen C3, his 79th career win, and Ogier's second place lifted him to the championship lead by three points heading to Australia.

Tanak had led with a comfortable margin until he damaged the radiator after landing off a jump during the second pass through Sweet Lamb Hafren. Ogier and Latvala then fought for victory, and Ogier returned to second in the drivers' standings, seven points behind Neuville. Lappi finished third and Breen fourth.

Loeb's Catalunya victory also set a record for the longest span between a driver's first and last event wins. Evans kept Neuville and Sordo behind him for third. Tanak led on Saturday, but three punctures, one for him and two for Latvala, ruined their pace, and Tanak finished sixth. Toyota's lead over Hyundai dropped to twelve points.

How did the title finish in Australia?

Latvala won Rally Australia, Lappi finished fourth, and the 1 and 4 result gave Toyota the manufacturers' title, its first since 1999. Ogier finished fifth with a Power Stage win, enough to take his sixth drivers' championship once Neuville and Tanak had both retired.

Neuville, the championship leader for most of the year, clipped a bank and a tree and retired. Tanak, who had won the most stages of the season, also stopped with transmission damage. That left Ogier as champion whatever his final position, and he finished fifth.

Tommi Makinen, who led Toyota's team, became the first person to win the championship both as a driver and as a team principal. Suninen retired his Fiesta before the final test after an impact on the previous stage, and Evans finished sixth after teammate Ogier.

What were the final standings?

Ogier and Ingrassia took the drivers' and co-drivers' titles, Neuville and Gilsoul finished eighteen points behind, and Tanak and Jarveoja were a further twenty points back in third. In the manufacturers' table, Toyota took the title, Hyundai finished twenty-seven points adrift, and M-Sport was third.

Hyundai had led the manufacturers' table after Sweden, but Toyota's season across the rounds, including Latvala's second place in Turkey, was enough to take the crown. Toyota's first title since 1999 came with a one-four finish in Australia.

How did the scoring system work?

Points went to the top ten classified finishers in each event. Each manufacturer could nominate three crews, but only the top two scoring cars driving 2017-specification World Rally Cars counted. The Power Stage paid five points for first, four for second, three for third, two for fourth and one for fifth.

Power Stage points counted only in the drivers' and co-drivers' championships. That made the stage a regular source of extra points in the title race, and several rounds turned on it.