The former Hyundai Motorsport team principal once said of Thierry Neuville: “He's like Houdini. Sometimes you can't explain how he can do certain times.” The quote fits perfectly for what happened in Special Stage 14 of the Croatian Rally.
The Belgian driver showed off a sumptuous performance on the 20.77 kilometer Stojdrnaga – Gornja Vas 2, the longest test of the day, managing the Hard tires very well especially in the sections where the asphalt had already been made slippery by the rain, therefore the first and last kilometer and a half before the red sign at the end of the test.
Neuville put together a great performance which saw him win the stage ahead of the two Toyota GR Yaris Rally1s competing for the lead, namely those of Sébastien Ogier and Elfyn Evans.
Neuville stopped the clock in 12'28″9, 3″9 better than Sébastien Ogier. Good news for Hyundai and for the 35-year-old from Sankt Vith, but the best news is that he beat Elfyn Evans by 4″3. This means that, in doing so, he is back in the lead of the Croatian Rally.
Now Neuville will face the penultimate special with a margin of 2″3 over Evans and 9″5 over Ogier, in a three-way fight that lasted and will last until the end of the last special to grab part of the weekend points that will be awarded at the end of today.
Also in this case, Takamoto Katsuta did better than the two riders preceding him in the general classification, beating Ott Tanak by 1″8 and Adrien Fourmaux by 4 seconds. Despite two good special stages in a row, the Japanese is still very far from his two rivals in terms of be able to aspire to climb into the Top 5.
In WRC2, however, Yohan Rossel is literally closing the gap he had against the category leader, his brand mate Nikolay Gryazin. Rossel, who started this afternoon 1 minute behind his rival, is now at 24″7 after another excellent performance, which brought him even under 30 seconds of gap in just two stages. The chase for first place is still very long and you will need to maintain this pace to try to overtake.
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