Tue 28 Jan 2025

Gap’s Golden Son: Ogier’s triumph unites a town

Looking up at Monte Carlo’s famous casino, M-Sport Ford World Rally Team rookie Josh McErlean shook his head and smiled. This was his pinch-himself moment. Sadly, he didn’t get the opportunity… there was another selfie to be taken with another fan.

There really is nowhere like the principality’s famous Casino Square to open a new season of world championship action.

The Irishman agreed. “It’s a special place.”

Monaco’s the perfect place for the Rallye Monte-Carlo ceremony, but the business is all done further north in and around the Hautes-Alpes town of Gap, famous for being Sébastien Ogier’s hometown. The Frenchman is the very definition of a local hero. On every corner, there’s one name being cheered and chanted.

And nowhere more so than every evening when the then nine (now 10)-time Monte winner arrived back in service following his day’s work. He only had to step out of the car and the noise was deafening, the atmosphere electric.

Spectator Antoine Roché brought his family to watch service on Saturday night. They were there for one man, one Toyota. Lifting his son from the best seat in the house, his shoulders, he said: “Séb makes everybody in Gap proud. He is the man who tells the world about our place. He always stays with the feet to the ground. He will always be one of us.”

Talking to Ogier about the event echoes precisely that sentiment. Having family, friends and fans around him constantly is an additional draw on his time, but it’s a burden he always has been – and always will be – delighted to bear.

The man from the mountains made them his own for the 10th time on Sunday. And from Gap all the way back down the Route Napoléon to Casino Square, it was smiles all round.

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