The newly crowned 2016 world rally champions, Sebastian Ogier and co-driver Julien Ingrassia, recently won their fourth Wales Rally GB and clinched the Volkswagen title.

The event welcomed a new title sponsor in the shape of Dayinsure, and offered 22 timed tests, totalling 330.21 kilometres

After Thursday evening’s ceremonial start in Colwyn Bay, a 5.30am start at Deeside for Friday’s opening leg also saw a shake up with Myherin, Sweet Lamb Hafren stages all reversed from previous years, plus the Dyfnant test was added to day one, to give a 178 kilometres of fast and furious action.

Morning mist, drizzle and fog rendered the opening pass far more treacherous than expected, first on the road was the place to be and the leading VW driver made full use of it.

DMACK World Rally Team driver, Ott Tanak, pictured top right, took the fight to Ogier, setting the fastest times on both Hafren and Dyfnant, to be just 7.7 seconds adrift of the Frenchman at the Newtown midday re-group and tyre fitting zone, but 24.6 seconds ahead of Jari Matti Latvala, who was in a five-way battle for third place.

In the National Rally that offered 85 crews one pass of the stages, Ben Friend and Cliff Simmons snapped a steering arm on stage 4 in the Allglass RS1800. They restarted on Saturday and had an excellent run to climb the leaderboard, but a broken wheel on Sunday’s opening stage brought retirement.

It was left to Mark Christopher and Peter Littlefield, in the Forest Auto Salvage Citroen C2, to take an excellent 53rd overall, 8th in class after 100 miles of action.

Read the full report in this week’s Ross Gazette

Paul Willetts