The balance in the fight for the WRC championship has swung towards Hyundai and Thierry Neuville.
Just when it looked like things would settle into a rhythm for Sebastien Ogier for a sixth World Rally Championship, two events turned everything upside down. Fourth place in Argentina and crashing out in Portugal mean that Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville is suddenly in the lead of the WRC.
It is a scenario that looked unlikely after the opening round in Monte Carlo, when Neuville had an accident that made life easier for Ogier. In fact, it wasn’t just Ogier who failed to make it to the finish in Portugal. Toyota’s Ott Tanak, who took a sensational win in Argentina, was forced to retire in Portugal due to the engine oil on his Yaris WRC overheating.
So now we have the surprising scenario of Neuville leading the WRC driver’s standings with 119 points while Ogier lies second on 100. Tanak is third on 72 points.
The flipside of this situation is that Neuville will have to play road-sweeper in the upcoming rallies, while Ogier and Tanak will be able to attack and potentially gain time. It’s not the purest way to foster competition in the WRC, but at least things continue to be hard-fought.
However, had it not been for Tanak’s retirement, things could’ve been a lot closer between the top three, especially given the Estonian’s stellar performance in Argentina.
After dictating the opening two legs of Rally Argentina, Tanak eased through the classic El Condor and Giulio Cesare speed tests in the rock-strewn Traslasierra mountains to win the fabled event by a margin of 37.7sec.
The Estonian looked down and out after hitting a rock, spinning his Yaris World Rally Car and damaging its steering on the morning of the opening day’s first special stage.
He won 10 of the next 12 tests to storm into a comfortable lead, leaving his demoralised rivals fighting over the remaining podium places. It was his first win since August last year in Germany, and Toyota’s first success since last July in Finland.
Second to him on that occasion was the WRC’s most consistent driver – Thierry Neuville. The Belgian has one win less than Ogier this year with two wins out of the six rounds, so far. However, he has finished every rally this year and his lowest finish has been sixth, while Ogier has one retirement to his name. The defending WRC champion’s tenth place finish in Sweden was also a fortuitous one.
But it would still be unwise to rule out the Frenchman, even with the troubles he faced in Portugal. Part of the troubles were the result of Ogier pushing as hard as possible to minimize the disadvantage of starting first among the field.
Trying to eke out as much advantage as possible led Ogier to clip a bank with the front-right tyre of his Fiesta WRC, which then led him to drift wide and hit loose gravel. From that point onwards, he had no control over his car – it simply slid down a bank into a section of trees.
Neuville’s championship lead, therefore, comes as a blessing in disguise as the Frenchman can (theoretically) not push as hard as he was attempting to do in Portugal. It’s a fine line, however. If Ogier is too complacent and tries to drive too safely then Ott Tanak suddenly leapfrogs both him and Neuville to eat into the points gap.
For Hyundai and Neuville, this is the golden opportunity they were waiting for. After four years of being thumped by Volkswagen and Ogier and then being trumped by Ogier and Ford last year, this is the biggest advantage that the Korean manufacturer has enjoyed in their quest to be WRC champions.
They hold a slim lead in the constructors’ championship too, leading M-Sport Ford by just 13 points. Margins like that can disappear in a flash in the WRC as both Argentina and Portugal have proved. Can Neuville and Hyundai handle having a target on their back? A tricky question given that they are now being hunted not only by Ogier but by Tanak too. Neuville will need all the luck that he can get to hold off the drivers who are undoubtedly the WRC’s finest of the current generation.
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