No one can or should take away from the achievements of Volkswagen Motorsport and Sebastien Ogier over the course of the 2013 WRC season.
Both parties did everything that was expected of them after spending a whole year preparing to take on and beat the mighty combination of Citroen and Sebastien Loeb.
And yet, it doesn’t really make up for the letdown that the season turned out to be, did it? At a time when Loeb’s domination of WRC along with manufacturer withdrawals had torpedoed the sport’s popularity, the last thing rallying fans wanted was another one-sided title battle.
Ogier’s final points tally of 290 points exceeded that of Loeb’s last year. The latter also let down rally fans badly by announcing a partial retirement that involved taking part in just four rallies this year.
Not quite the heavyweight slugfest people were hoping for between two big manufacturers and arguably the two best drivers in WRC.
However, some positives did arise from Loeb exiting the scene. The WRC took note of Thierry Neuville, the 25-year-old Belgian who is off to spearhead Hyundai’s return to the WRC with the i20 next year.
Former F1 star Robert Kubica won the WRC-2 title in a Citroen and even competed in a WRC-spec DS3 in Rally Great Britain.
The Pole crashed out but was competitive enough for there to be serious talk of Citroen drafting him in their factory WRC outfit in order to have some kind of reply to VW and Hyundai – the two outfits most likely to compete for top honours next year.
Not to mention for Indian fans there’s the hope of seeing newly crowned Asia Pacific Rally Championship Gaurav Gill behind the wheel of a WRC-2 spec Skoda. Nothing confirmed but still, something better to look forward to.
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