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Sébastien Ogier's pursuit of a record tenth World Rally Championship (WRC) title is now out of reach, given his 63-point deficit with only 35 points remaining to be distributed.
Nevertheless, with his upcoming start at Rally Italia Sardegna next month, the Frenchman is set to break one WRC record and will have the opportunity to shatter another.
This is because Ogier's participation and result in Chile brought him level at the top of two prestigious WRC rankings: most starts and most podium finishes in the championship's history.
Most Starts
Jari-Matti Latvala took the record for most WRC starts from two-time world champion Carlos Sainz. Ironically, Sainz will soon be displaced from third place by his compatriot Dani Sordo when the Spaniard starts in Sardinia.
The Finn was the first driver to surpass the 200-start mark, eventually accumulating a total of 213 rallies.
Today, Latvala is the team principal for Toyota, while also competing in the FIA European Historic Rally Championship with his own Celica. However, since 2023, he has participated in at least one WRC event each year – his home rally, Rally Finland.
This means his number of starts continues to grow, but not as rapidly as Ogier's, who has competed in most (though not all) rallies over the past five seasons.
Ogier is now tied with his former Volkswagen teammate, Latvala, with 213 appearances each. Thus, his start in Sardinia will be his 214th in the WRC, making him the sole record holder.
"My career has definitely exceeded any expectations I could have had when I started rallying. That's a fact," Ogier told Dirtfish.
"The positive thing is that I'm still here, and this weekend I equaled Jari-Matti's all-time record. Sorry, Jari-Matti, I know you're a bit sad right now," he smiled. "But I'm sure you can still catch him at some point with another rally. Or who knows? Maybe with a Rally1 car, someday…"
In his 213 starts, Ogier has achieved more than Latvala – and not just in terms of his nine titles versus zero. Ogier has won 51 more events, 317 more stages, and achieved 53 more podiums…
Most Podiums
…which brings us to the other record Ogier now shares: the most podium finishes.
Ogier's second-place finish in Chile was his 120th career podium, putting him level with the other great Sébastien – Loeb.
Loeb holds an edge over Ogier, achieving his 120 podiums in 184 starts compared to Ogier's 213, and winning 80 rallies to Ogier's 69.
Ogier has more second-place finishes (31 vs. 29) and has finished third 20 times, while Loeb has only stepped onto the lowest step of the podium 11 times.
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