Ogier's New Home

For the first time since he started winning world championships, Sebastien Ogier will arrive at rally GB without having already sealed the title. But the four-time world champion has no regrets about signing for m-sport after Volkswagen’s withdrawal from Ralling.

- David Evans 

A silver Ford Mondeo pulls off the road and looks entirely ill-at-ease in its surroundings. This mud-flecked motorway cruiser doesn’t really do a gravel set-up, but it’s served its purpose. Sebastien Ogier has learned the road. Julien Ingrassia has made his notes. The pair step out of the car in search of a Ford with an M-Sport badge. One that was made to deal with dirt.

As the championship leader shuts the door on the Mondeo, he shields his eyes. It’s sunny and he wasn’t expecting that. “It’s beautiful,” he says. “This place, the weather, it’s beautiful.”

It’s hard to argue. Larches dotted through the woods have started to do the autumn thing and a sea of green is turning multicoloured. Nature’s wont is forgotten when the quiet of this absolute middle-of-nowhere is broken by the ever so slightly lazy turnover of something deep inside a trailer. It catches and the noise starts.

Ogier disappears into a big blue command truck – M-Sport’s test unit. Darkened windows hide walls lined with laptops logging every millimetre of wheelspin and degree of slip. Ogier’s team-mate Ott Tanak was running yesterday and he’s keen to familiarise himself with the Estonian’s progress before he sets off on road number two.

These are important days for Ogier and for M-Sport. The settings signed off in the next 48 hours could help or hinder the delivery of two world titles. “It would mean so much to do it here,” says Ogier quietly, digging his hands deep into his jacket pockets. The sun might be bright, but it’s still low. It’s not quite eight in the morning yet.