One month, a symbolic date: 2019 Monte-Carlo Rally

A historic hundredth victory for TotalEnergies and Citroën Racing!

In the centenary year of TotalEnergies, it is a great opportunity to remember the hundredth victory achieved by the company and Citroën Racing in the FIA World Rally Championship. It was during the 2019 Monte-Carlo rally for the debut of Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia aboard the Citroën C3 WRC wearing the colors of TotalEnergies (Total at the time). On a particularly demanding terrain, where the Gapençais driver is still the only record holder for victories, with nine successes, he once again demonstrated his mastery of the winter weather conditions characteristic of the Monegasque event to shine.

But after four intense days of racing, spent playing cat and mouse with his closest pursuer, he only had a lead of four tenths at the start of the final special stage of the rally on Sunday, a renowned special stage of the Rally from Monte-Carlo depending on La Cabanette to the Col de Braus, 13.58 kilometers long. The fault in particular was a problem with the accelerator pedal which handicapped him somewhat. But the now eight-time world rally champion kept his cool to finally win by a tiny margin of 2.2 seconds after some three hundred and twenty-four kilometers of qualifying.

Nearly twenty years after the first success achieved, on the Xsara Kit-Car at the 1999 Catalonia Rally, by the late Philippe Bugalski and Jean-Paul Chiaroni, Citroën Racing and TotalEnergies thus reached the impressive figure of one hundred WRC victories at the same time. . A historic performance which testifies to incredible longevity at the highest level for the association formed by the Citroën team and its emblematic partner. Two other successes would follow that year (Mexico, Turkey), bringing the total to one hundred and two trophies.