WRC: Victory and WRC lead for Neuville
RALLY PORTUGAL In the sixth round of the World Rally Championship, Thierry Neuville in the Hyundai i20 WRC was the superior driver. With his second win of the season, the Belgian took over the top spot in the standings from world champion Sébastien Ogier, who came away empty-handed. After several lead changes among four drivers, Thierry Neuville took the top spot on the second day from SS7 onwards. The soon-to-be 30-year-old built on this [...]
After several lead changes among four drivers, Thierry Neuville took the lead from SS7 on the second day. The soon-to-be 30-year-old Belgian steadily extended this lead with four consecutive best times.
Elfyn Evans in the Ford Fiesta WRC came a little closer to him in the meantime. But Neuville controlled the action almost at will with the Hyundai i20 WRC, which ran perfectly on the hard Portuguese gravel.
While some of the top drivers stumbled, Neuville and his co-driver Nicolas Gilsoul brought their car home in one piece without making any major mistakes. With the 25 WRC points for his second win of the season after Sweden and another four points for second place on the Power Stage, he took over the lead in the standings.
Rare mistake of the world champion
The previously leading Sébastien Ogier came away empty-handed, which is a rare occurrence. Although the world champion had to be the first to take to the gravel tracks and thus play the road mop, his gap was initially kept within bounds.
On SS5, however, the Frenchman made a rare mistake while cutting a corner, resulting in a broken suspension and subsequent crash into the trees. The Ford team did bring him back into the race on the third day, charging a time penalty. But with a gap of more than 30 minutes to the front runners, the five-time Portugal winner was no longer able to win a pot of gold.
Elfyn Evans and Teemu Suninen then pulled the chestnuts out of the fire for Ford, bringing their Fiesta WRC home in second and third place, 40 and 47.3 seconds behind respectively. For the Welshman it was his first podium of the year, for the young Finn his first ever in the WRC.
The best driver from the Toyota camp was Esapekka Lappi in fifth place behind the second Hyundai driver Dani Sordo. Jari-Matti Latvala broke the suspension of the Toyota Yaris WRC when driving over boulders and therefore dropped out of the points.
Luck of the draw for two Citroën drivers
Ott Tänak, winner of the previous WRC round in Argentina, started in Portugal right away with a best time on the first SS. The Estonian had to retire on the second day with radiator damage caused by a stone chip that led to engine failure.
Mads Østberg scored the best points for Citroën in sixth place. Kris Meeke was in the lead at times on the first stage of the day and fell back to eighth place due to two punctures.
The Northern Irishman and his co-driver Paul Nagle then had all their guardian angels to their side on the third day when they survived a vehement crash into the trees without injury. The accident had flattened the A-pillar of the Citroën C3 WRC!
Neuville now leads the drivers' world championship with 119 points ahead of Ogier (112) and Tänak (72). In the manufacturers' standings, Hyundai (175) leads just ahead of Ford (162), Toyota (140) and Citroën (111).
