Former junior world rally champion Sebastien Ogier of France (Citroen C4) won his first World Rally Championship event in the Rally of Portugal on Sunday ahead of Citroen team-mates Sebastien Loeb and Dani Sordo. 

Ogier, competing in only his second full season in the senior championship, finished 7,9 seconds ahead of reigning world champion and fellow Frenchman Loeb and 1 min 17,6 sec in front of Sordo.

He led after Friday morning’s fourth special stage and went into the final day with a 21,1 second advantage over Loeb.  The seven-times world champion was fastest in the first four stages of the day and claimed back 14 seconds, but his younger team-mate was not to be denied after finishing second in the Rally of New Zealand three weeks ago.  Ogier had led in New Zealand by 6,2 sec going into the final stage, but spun off the road and allowed Finland’s Jari-Matti Latvala to take a fortunate win in his Ford Focus.

Mikko Hirvonen of Finland, runner-up to Loeb in last year’s championship, stole fourth place in a Ford Focus after Norway’s Petter Solberg crashed his Citroen on the final super special stage just metres from the finish.  Matthew Wilson of Great Britain was sixth in a Ford ahead of Sweden’s Mads Ostberg (Subaru), Federico Villagra (Ford) , Khalid Al Qassimi (Ford) and former Formula One world champion Kimi Raikkonen of Finland (Citroen).  Raikkonen had tyre problems on the final day and dropped two places, finishing over 11 minutes behind the winner.

After six rounds Loeb leads the World Championship with 126 points from Ogier (88), Mikko Hirvonen (76), Latvala (72), Petter Solberg (63) and Sordo (49).

Citroen is the leading manufacturer with 189 points, followed by Ford (163) and the Citroen Junior Team (106).