With: 1st - Sébastien Ogier, Volkswagen Motorsport1st - Julien Ingrassia, Volkswagen Motorsport2nd - Hayden Paddon, Hyundai Motorsport N2nd - John Kennard, Hyundai Motorsport N3rd - Thierry Neuville, Hyundai Motorsport3rd - Nicolas Gilsoul, Hyundai MotorsportJost Capito, Team Principal, Volkswagen Motorsport

Q:What a great result Sébastien, how do you feel?SO:Great! I didn’t expect this [result this] weekend. I expect to suffer a lot, but at the end we are still sitting in the middle in this press conference – this is the best result I could ever dream of. I was planning to try to take the maximum points as possible to extend the lead and we come out of Sardinia with an amazing lead in the championship.

Q:This has been a tough challenge…SO:Of course it was tough. At the front, you need to focus and not lose too much time. What helped was that we could use soft tyres more than I expected. Normally it’s too hot on the hot gravel rallies like this one. But we could use it and we could get some more grip in the loose gravel. The good strategy of the tyres helped us a bit, but that was a tough job. The two guys on my right [Paddon and Kennard] did a great job. It was kind of a surpise for them to be fighting for so long at the front, but not completely a surprise for me. I knew he had good potential when I saw him competing and I drove against him in 2012 when we were both in a Skoda. I remember some good times from him. I take the chance to say really well done for him.

Q:You didn’t put a foot wrong?SO:There was nothing dramatic. When you do such a long rally: three days and 400 kilometres, 1,500 kilometres in total and a very hot condition, it’s impossibl to make 100 per cent perfect rally. We did a really good rally – maybe not perfect, there were some small mistakes: once the gearshift missed a little bit, but nothing really special. It was a very good rally. We had to use our mind a lot this time. The stage was really rough second time and the thing was to keep the tyre and car in one piece. We did that quite well yesterday afternoon, we had the perfect car from the perfect team and the meteo worked very well for the weather.

Q:You can take it easy now, no need to win rallies or the Power Stages any more…SO:Yeah, maybe as long as I’m not sure to be champion, I take the maximum points. This is still a sport where anything can happen. For now, everything is going very well, we have a lot of confidence and I am feeling so well in the car. I hope there is no reason for anything changing.

Q:Julien, you must have been doing a lot of talking on this rally?JI:Yeah. It was good training for me – I have a festival coming up! I think we all agree that – also maybe Corsica – this is probably the rally where we have the most heavy pacenotes. There are a lot of corners, it’s really twisty and we have a lot of information in the notes. One of our strengths with Seb is to build nice and strong notes, this is also a big part of the rally.

Q:Is it a relief going into the second half of the season with a big lead?JI:If we make a tennis match, we got the break and with the approach of the summer we have a very strong gap. We have Tarmac events coming and in Germany we have seen last year that something can happen. We need to take the points. I must say, I am sad not to see the New Zealand guys not winning, they could make a nice haka…HP:We only do the haka before [winning] – maybe that was the problem!

Q:Hayden, how are you feeling about your first poiudm?HP: It’s been an amazing weekend. Friday morning probably exceeded our expectation. At the end of the first stage I knew we had an advantage from where we were on the road, but the stage didn’t seem to flow so well. I said to John that we had lost of a lot of time in there, but we had the fastest time. I relaxed a bit after that, everything was working and it felt quite easy in the car. Second place is much more than we expected from this rally though – I guess expectation will be a lot higher for the rest of the year!

Q:Were you surprised that you could extend your lead?HP:After the first stage it was apparent that the morning could continue like that [with the advantage in the road position]. I was a bit nervous in the afternoon, not knowing how much advantage I would have. I think I probably got more satisfaction out of being in the top three and setting times close to Seb and Jari-Matti [Latvala] than the times in the morning – they gave me more confidence and I pushed on from there.

Q:What was the plan on Saturday morning?HP:I never thought, to be honest, about the result, it was just one stage at a time. We wanted to go out and do our own thing. I don't think we would have kept Seb behind in a straight fight, I think he had something in the tank, but I was a bit surprised when we were still there on Saturday lunchtime.

Q:The paddle shift has helped you this weekend?HP:Surprisingly, that’s made a very big difference, but we didn't have much testing before the event. The first time I used the paddle was at shakedown and a couple of times in the super special on Thursday night I went for the lever. The paddle helps to use the engine a bit more. Looking at the data, I’d been a gear higher than Thierry [Neuville] and Dani [Sordo] and now I’m a gear down in some places. In a lot of corners with the paddles, I’m using the gears more and really feeling the torque – that’s where the improvement is coming.

Q:You have more improvements coming?HP:We’re not far behind [the Hyundai Motorsport i20 WRCs]. We get an engine upgrade in Poland, but we’re pretty close and then it’s down to car set-up.

Q:This won’t be a one-off will it? Do we get a haka before Poland?HP:For sure it’s not a one-off, but we have to be realistic and keep our feet on the ground. My goal for Poland was to go for a top five and that stays the same. But for sure, I’m a very competitive person and I think now maybe for Australia we can start tagging the win. There are similar sort of road conditions and grip levels to what we have here. The feeling in the car is good and, for sure, I still have a lot to improve. We’re going to keep our feet on the ground.

Q:We saw emotional scenes at the stage end where you had the problem. The only words you said to the crew was: “It’s broken.” Did you think it was all over?HP:Definitely. When we broke it early on, we knew straight away what the problem was – we had the same problem in Argentina and we retired after 50 kilometres. This time we still had 80 kilometres to go. But we strapped it all together and cruised through the last stage. I was very surprised. I’m not one for showing a lot of happiness, but when things go wrong I am one for showing a lot of emotion and I was gutted.

Q:John, this is your first podium in 27 years – I hope we don’t have to wait as long for the next one!JK:I hope not! If Seb tidies the championship up in Germany then it does open the door for Australia, like Hayden says.

Q:You’ve been together a long time…JK:We did the Otago Rally in New Zealand to celebrate 10 years together and I’ve always had it in the back of my mind what Hayden’s capable of. He’s showing that now.

Q:He says he didn’t think the first stage had gone well, but you knew it had, didn't you?JK:The stage felt a bit messy, but really good – he usually goes into that sort of mode: you get all these things: “The notes were rubbish…” and all those kind of things between the finish and the stop and that’s when you know it’s not a bad time.

Q:Was there pressure on you?JK:Like Hayden said, a few years ago we went back to the mentality of doing our own thing. We do the best we can do, and if that’s right or wrong, we can do something about it. We did our thing and it happened to turn out quite well.

Q:Thierry, congratulations on the podium, it’s been quite a dramatic weekend for you?TN:It was a big surpsise to be on the podium. I started not so well. I wasn’t confident with the settings and the tyre choice and then we lost the turbo pipe – this cost us one minute but we fixed it with good mechanic skills! We were pretty lucky to finish. The pace was better on Saturday, but then we had the problems with power steering – but we kept our concentration and had a decent drive on Saturday afternoon, when I catch back some time and today I don’t need to say more, it’s quite busy for us.

Q:When the stages were clean, what did you think of the pace?TN:On Saturday afternoon it went quite well. We had a fastest time and a couple of second fastest times without taking the risk. We had some difficult rallies before and I absolutely wanted to finish, that was our goal. Hayden was going well and we could see the pace was there, we tried to follow on Saturday afternoon. This was about survival.

Q:Nice to see your team-mate in second?TN:I really remember well this for myself, it’s a nice moment for him – always one of the best to get the first podium and first victory. For me it’s the best moments of my career so far.

Q:You’re going to fast rallies now, you have more confidence?TN:We have to do some more testing, I really didn’t feel well for the last couple of rallies. We made a step in the right direction, testing will help for Finland, Poland [testing] is already done. We need a bit more confidence and we should be racing.

Q:Nicolas how do you feel?NG:It’s nice to be back on podium. Since Argentina we struggle a little bit with the settings and we lost confidence and the pace. But now it’s back and we were very well in the car. Yesterday and today we drove to the finish.

Q:Who’s the best mechanic out of you two?NG:We are both quite good. We chat a lot together to stay calm, it’s importan to stay calm and not to be nervous. Thierry was very good twice, to carry on and come on the podium.

Q:Jost, this is a great result for Seb and Julien?JC:This year a couple of times we said they drove the best rally of their career and this one was, I think, the most clever drive of their career.

Q:What about Andreas, he’s used Rally 2 twice, will he bounce back?JC:He has proven he can get on the podium by finishing second and third on a couple of rallies and now he has to push harder to fight for the win, we allow him to push harder and some mistakes will happen, but he is still in a good way. I am still convinced he will win a rally.

Q:Jari-Matti has had some bad luck?JC:He showed the speed and, like normal, there were no team orders, they all want to fight to win the rallies and they have to give 100 per cent and these things can happen. We want to see the fight, that’s it. We extended the lead in the manufacturers and it’s all good.

Q:What have you thought of the event?JC:The stages are very tough, one of the most tough rallies – but I see a little bit of a problem in the mentality of some organisers. They seem to say we need to have long days, 18-hour days for endurance. But I don’t really see the sense of doing 500 kilometres each day on public roads, that doesn’t give anything to the sport, it doesn’t give anything to the competition. It’s just not good for the fans, they get two or three hours between the stages and they get turned off during the day. A service at six in the morning doesn’t make any sense for the fans and it’s the same with the service at midnight. It’s also not good for the media, we don’t get the reports out before midnight and it’s difficult to get into the newspapers the next day. The organisers and the FIA should think about the schedule and if they want to increase the endurance then do it on the stages and the mileage on the stages, not just the road sections.

Questions from the Floor:

Markus StierSport Auto, Germany

Q:One World Champion almost lost his title because he came off a motorbike. Do you dare touch the gift you got from Jost last year, Seb?SO:It’s true, I almost don’t touch this! The temptation is big because we have Ducatti in the group. I was in Mugello just before coming here and it was an incredbile experience. I could have taken the double seater ride with Randy Mamola, but Jost and Sven [Smeets] said maybe I should wait until the end of season. I was happy because I’m not so sure I wanted to do it! Andrea Dovizioso came in the car with me and he said I must go to the bike with him. I will do it later in the season.

FIA WRC 2 CHAMPIONSHIP

Present:1st - Yurii Protasov1st - Pavlo Cherepin

Q: What an incredible battle – just 0.5s between you and Paolo Andreucci before the last stage. How was it for you?YP:It’s really good. I am very happy for this situation. All the time I was pushing and the fight with Andreucci was fast, fast, fast and it was a really interesting rally. We have very good results, the best on my career – for me it’s unbelievable. I am really very happy.

Q:How tough was the event?YP:I think you should talk to my co-driver…

Q:Pavlo, how tough was it for you?PC:As for the detail of our race, we had tactics. We wanted to be like in a defending position on Friday; looking and watching what the other guys can perform. Then on Saturday and Sunday we knew the stages would suit us better. We planned to push from the first kilometre on Saturday’s stages. The tactic worked well before the puncture this morning.

Q:For a co-driver you have been talking a lot…PC:A very lot!

Q:Throat sore?PC:Yes, I take some special exercise last night.

Q:Were there a few nerves before the final stage?PC:Well, maybe some but not too much. We came to the regroup and in the second we enter the regroup and we are about to hand in the time card, the guy from television told us to leave, saying we had to open the stage. While we drive to the stage, we had the information we start after all the P1 drivers. This organisation mess made it a bit nervous for us, but not too much.

Q:It must be a good confidence boost though?PC:Maybe this is one more step forward that we need. It was not so challenging rally, luckily we have one of the fastest and best drivers in the world – we made a good step this weekend!

FIA WRC 3 CHAMPIONSHIP

1st - Teemu Suninen1st - Mikko Markkula

Q:Congratulations Teemu. Everybody in WRC 3 used Rally 2 on this event – you must be pleased to win?TS: Thanks for the congratulations. It was really tough for the car, everybody had to retire, but luckily we managed the car in the best way and we got the result.

Q:Were you happy with the pace?TS:On the Friday we were looking at the pace: how fast? We could push a bit more on Friday afternoon and we get the lead. After that the drivers retired and I could pace it on Saturday – I was happy for that.

Q:What was the biggest challenge?TS:Punctures.

Q:Does this give you a confidence boost to take points in WRC 3?TS: Yes, for sure. We get some confidence and there is no better way to prepare for the next race in Poland.

Q:Poland’s high-speed and quite similar to Finland, looking forward to that?TS:Yes, I change to an S2000 Skoda, which will be a really big challenge for me.

Q:Why the change?TS:For practice for next year.

Q:What are your hopes for WRC 3?TS:To get some good experience from every rally and, of course, I want to be fast and get good results.

Q:Mikko, great to see you – how was your weekend?MM: It was a tough event. I can’t remember before this what event was this tough. We tried to avoid the stones, they were everywhere. From the start to the end: stones. This car cannot take so much as the other cars. It was safe and sensible driving for us.

Q:We’ve seen you alongside many drivers, these are exciting times for you…MM:Of course. We get really good support from them (TMG) and we have the best manager in the world in Timo Jouhki. We cannot be happier: we have a factory contract and the best manager in the world. Plus, one of the most talented drivers around.

Q:How do you rate Teemu?MM:He started when he was six, he has been racing for 15 years – this is his life and he knows this is the best way. For those who don’t know, he had a Red Bull contract with Helmutt Marko and the goal was to be in F1, so he must be talented!