Volkswagen Motorsport’s impressive era in the FIA World Rally Championship comes to an end with a superb victory on Rally Australia by Andreas Mikkelsen and Anders Jaeger, the duo claiming the 43rd victory for the Polo R WRC during four years of successful competition. Team-mates Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia concluded the German squad’s campaign with a fine second overall and the Hyundai crew of Thierry Neuville and Nicolas Gilsoul claimed the final podium position on the New South Wales event.

In the FIA World Rally Championships, Sébastien Ogier, Julien Ingrassia and Volkswagen Motorsport took another clean sweep of the titles* for the fourth consecutive season. Neuville’s third position ensured he and co-driver Gilsoul claimed second in the Championship, Mikkelsen’s victory insufficient for him to move up the standings. He does however finish third, just six points adrift. In the Manufacturers’ Championship, Hyundai Motorsport finished on a high, taking second after its most successful season in the series.

Today covered five stages, two repeated, and was set for a three-way fight between Mikkelsen, Ogier and Hayden Paddon, the rivals split by 12 seconds going into the day. With just a two-second lead over Ogier, Mikkelsen was on maximum attack from the outset and won the first three stages and was handed an added bonus when an uncharacteristic error by Ogier saw him spin in the second stage and drop at least 17 seconds, giving Mikkelsen the breathing space he needed at the head of the leaderboard. In the same stage Paddon ran wide, clipped a bank and took the tyre off the rim, losing him over a minute and third overall. In a position to control the pace, Mikkelsen ceded two stage wins to Ogier, who rounded off a successful season with yet another Power Stage victory, the 33rd of his career. Neuville had a spin in the first stage, but was then elevated to third after Paddon’s woes. The Belgian nevertheless had to keep pushing with both his team-mates in hot pursuit but managed to hold position ahead of Paddon and Dani Sordo, who finished fourth and fifth split by a mere 1.6 seconds after 300 kilometres of competition. 

Mads Østberg claimed sixth in the lead Fiesta RS WRC, his team-mate Eric Camilli rolling out of the rally in the third stage. Ott Tanak finished seventh after a difficult event managing tyre wear in the heat. Esapekka Lappi moved into eighth overall, the Finn winning the FIA WRC 2 Championship category and more importantly the title*. He won all but one of the stages in his Škoda Fabia R5 and takes a maiden victory in this important support championship. Jari-Matti Latvala managed to bounce back from the disappointment of his opening stage mistake and finished ninth with Lorenzo Bertelli 10th overall, the Italian losing time with a broken differential today. Michel Fabre finished the event, taking the win in the FIA WRC 3 Championship category.

Rally Australia marks the end of the 2016 FIA World Rally Championship season, as well as the era of the current world rally cars entered by the manufacturers in the series. Next year, new technical regulations herald the appearance of dynamic, distinctive and aggressive-looking cars and sees former World Champions Citroën and Toyota join Hyundai and M-Sport for the season-opener in Monte-Carlo on 19-22 January 2017.

Rally Australia – Final Unofficial Classification (subject to scrutineering)

* Subject to official confirmation of the results by the FIA