Ogier wins in Japan and postpones Loeb celebrations

Sebastien Ogier was the winner of the Rally of Japan. The French clinched his second World Rally Championship victory and his first with the official Citroën team. Ogier finished ahead of Petter Solberg, while Jari-Matti Latvala was third. Loeb was only fifth but still got some important points to secure his seventh WRC title.

Solberg led the for most of the rally and as he was close to win for the first time in at least 16 years with an independent entry, a broken damper cost him ground on the final loop of stages of the rally. He dropped to second place behind the French.

"It's amazing, I'm really, really happy," said Ogier. "Arriving here I said 'okay, it will be a difficult rally for me - I don't like this kind of stage, it's very rough and it's my first time.' But immediately we found a good feeling and a good rhythm, and now we have won, so it's perfect."

Solberg almost didn’t take part in the rally as he was struggling with illness. The result was a surprise for him. Wouldn’t that problem happen and it would probably have been a perfect weekend.

"Obviously I never thought we would go so well after the flu and the fever and everything - I felt terrible at the start of the rally," said Solberg. "But the car worked really well and I really had a good feeling for everything. Unfortunately we had this problem with the car. But I'm really happy."

The Fords were also in contention for victory throughout the Japanese Rally but both Latvala saw his chances gone due to mechanical problems. He managed to recover from a driveshaft breakage on Saturday afternoon and chased Dani Sordo to take him out of the podium.

Hirvonen had worst luck. On Sunday he was fighting for the lead with Solberg but he had a differential problem. As there was no assistance on Sunday Hirvonen had to run until the last stage nursing the car throughout the entire leg. He fell into sixth behind Loeb.

As for Sebastien Loeb he was out of contention for the most part of the rally, finishing fifth, 53.3 seconds behind his team-mate Ogier. With an advantage of 43 points over his team-mate, Loeb should be able to secure his seventh consecutive WRC title in France at the beginning of October.