WRC | Neuville doesn’t trust Ogier part-time: “He’s my rival”

Thierry Neuville arrived in Finland knowing he would have to do everything he could to defend his first position in the World Championship after seeing his teammate Ott Tanak close to eight points after Rally Latvia, but instead he left the often hostile terrain with a 27-point advantage over his closest rival for the world title.

The retirements of Ott Tanak first (who went off the road on SS3) and then Elfyn Evans (on SS19, the penultimate one), combined with Neuville’s second place finish at Rally Finland, have allowed the World Championship leader to distance both of them by more than 30 points.

But behind Neuville there is a new, main pursuer: Sébastien Ogier. The Toyota Gazoo Racing driver, one of the two part-timers employed by the Japanese team, thanks to the victory obtained in Finland by taking advantage of the retirement in the penultimate special of Kalle Rovanpera has climbed to second place in the Drivers’ Championship, recovering one point on Neuville.

27 points with 4 rallies to go in the World Championship. But a question looms over Ogier’s present and future this season: will Toyota field him in all 4 events remaining to finish the season? In Japan they would like the champion from Gap to make himself available to chase what would be the ninth world title of his career.

Ogier himself, at the end of the rally, declared: “Doing all the remaining rallies would not be my priority. But in the conditions I am in, do I have a choice?”. Thierry Neuville himself considers Ogier his main rival, if only for a mere matter of numbers: the driver closest to him in the standings is none other than Séb.

“After Finland my main rival for the title is the one in second position. Mr. Sébastien Ogier,” said the Belgian after Rally Finland.

“Maybe he doesn’t feel like pushing to fight for the title, but he’s been there in the last few rallies and he’s fighting for every single point. Definitely, yes, I think he’ll be there.”

Neuville then spoke about his weekend, in which he experienced several difficulties linked to a set-up far from his preferences and the feeling – for the first time this season – of having an uncompetitive car to fight for the important positions.

“It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions this weekend. We had high hopes, but somehow we realized already during the shakedown that things weren’t working out the way we wanted and that it was going to be a challenging weekend, and so it was,” he added.

“Performance hasn’t always been great, with ups and downs and difficult driving conditions. [sul bagnato]. We understood immediately that we had to have an intelligent approach and focus on bringing home important points.”

“Our two teammates crashing on Friday put us under pressure because the team desperately needed a car in the points, but we constantly managed and changed our approach depending on the situation.”