Just three rounds remain in the World Rally Championship for 2024, beginning with Rally Chile.
After an Acropolis Rally Greece full of drama, the picture in the title race seems clearer than ever, but there is still time for a twist in the tale of this season.
As the final gravel rally of the year, Chile presents an important challenge for Thierry Neuville to overcome in his bid to clinch a first championship, and a vital opportunity for nearest rivals Ott Tänak and Sébastien Ogier to keep the pressure on if they can.
Here is our form guide for Rally Chile:
#11 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: 1st-2nd-8th
Best Chile result: 2nd (2023)
An Acropolis win didn’t remotely appear to be on the cards on Friday morning for Thierry Neuville, but he stuck to his game plan and it paid off handsomely. It was in many ways a champion’s drive.
The past three rallies had the potential to seriously derail Neuville’s title bid, given how tough their opening days looked to be for him, but he emerged with his lead increased to 34 points – enough to retire from the last gravel rally of the year in Chile and still lead into the asphalt double-header that rounds out the season.
The weather will determine how much road cleaning he has to do, and how competitive he can truly be, but this isn’t a rally he needs to win or necessarily even take a podium from. A clean run, avoiding a repeat of his huge 2019 crash or any similar drama, could suffice.
#8 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: 3rd-DNF-3rd
Best Chile result: 1st (2019 & 2023)
Whether it’s just bad luck or something else, things are not falling Ott Tänak’s way right now. He began Saturday in Greece in the lead, ahead of his two team-mates, and ended the morning’s first stage three-and-a-half minutes down after having to stop twice to change a wheel.
Perhaps Chile could be the place for an improvement in fortune. Tänak has won on both of the WRC’s previous visits to Concepción – the first with Toyota during his scorching run to his 2019 world title, the second maybe more impressively in M-Sport’s Ford Puma one year ago when he finished comfortably clear of second-placed Neuville.
There’s little reason to see why he can’t now complete a rather unique hat-trick in a Hyundai. The fast yet technical stages seem to suit him well, although running second on the road could be a handicap if it’s dry. If he can do it, the 34-point deficit to Neuville will be reduced and nothing’s over yet.
#17 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: 16th-1st-2nd
Best Chile result: 2nd (2019)
Sébastien Ogier continued to show outstanding confidence and speed at the wheel of his Toyota in Greece. There was nothing he could have done to avoid the turbo problem that cost him the lead on Friday evening, but he minimized the time loss and, after that, fought back to recover points for himself and his team. A puncture-induced roll in the powerstage was an unfortunate ending, given that backing off and taking it easy was never really an option despite the rough conditions.
Ogier isn’t going to be dwelling on that and remains committed to fighting to the end of the season to secure the best results possible. It’s natural that he’s playing down his title chances now, because a 38-point gap is certainly a lot, but nothing seems impossible with the form he has shown in 2024.
Unlike most of his rivals, Ogier wasn’t in Chile last year, so any knowledge he has of the stages are from five years ago, but that’s not something that will faze him and he will surely be among the contenders for victory again this week.
#33 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: 18th-DNF-5th
Best Chile result: 3rd (2023)
It’s all gone wrong very quickly for Elfyn Evans’ championship hopes. It was mechanical issues outside of his control that really put him on the back foot on both of the past two rallies, but bending the bodywork thereafter really didn’t help his cause either – leading to a zero-score in Finland and a conservative run to the finish ramp in Greece.
In Evans’ case, a deficit of 52 points is perhaps too great to be closed now, but that does at least offer an opportunity to approach the last three rounds with a different goal and a different frame of mind.
On paper they are all rallies that can be good ones for Evans. The flowing roads of Chile have been likened to those in Finland and Wales where he has very much looked at home in the past. Perhaps they will also allow him to use a setup that he feels more comfortable with, having struggled most on rougher and slower roads this season.
#16 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Ford Puma Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: 21st-3rd-4th
Best Chile result: N/A
It was a rare error in Greece from the much-improved 2024 version of Adrien Fourmaux that put an end to a consistent run of strong points finishes, but a powerstage win meant he and M-Sport could still leave on a high note.
Chile presents an interesting opportunity for both, considering how strong the Puma looked in the hands of Tänak last year. The challenge for Fourmaux is that he has never competed there before.
Therefore, it might be that he looks to grow into the event on Friday, then push on for some good times and maybe even a top result as the weekend progresses.
#69 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: DNF-1st-1st
Best Chile result: 4th (2023)
Kalle Rovanperä returns to WRC action for the first time since a misplaced rock sent his Toyota tumbling into the trees at the end of the penultimate stage of Rally Finland – abruptly and unbelievably ending his hopes of a home win for another year and preventing a hat-trick of wins on high-speed European gravel.
The Chilean stages provide a great chance for Rovanperä to pick up where he left off in Moksi.
A combination of road sweeping, Toyota underestimating the abrasiveness of the roads and having a championship lead to protect meant that Rovanperä wasn’t a factor in the overall fight a year ago, but the circumstances are very different this time around and he surely starts among the favorites for victory.
#5 Sami Pajari/Enni Mälkönen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: 4th-4th-12th
Best Chile result: 8th (2023, 3rd in WRC2)
After an excellent debut with Toyota’s Rally1 car at Rally Finland, Sami Pajari gets a well-deserved further chance to impress across the next two events in Chile and Central Europe.
As in Finland, the team is not placing any expectation or pressure on a result in Chile – but both Pajari and his boss Jari-Matti Latvala have also acknowledged that the flowing stages should suit him well. After all, Pajari went to Chile last year and had the pace to rival Oliver Solberg for the WRC2 win.
In many ways, it’s the perfect event for him to build upon what he showed in Finland while also adapting to nuances like the more abrasive surface. It’s also effectively a bonus start for him. The one thing he’ll want to not repeat from Finland is damaging the car on Friday morning.
At least his road position won’t bring much extra pressure to make a flying start: after two consecutive fourth places overall – one in Rally1 machinery, one in Rally2 – he’s up to ninth in the championship, sandwiching him between Rovanperä and Esapekka Lappi in the order. As such, he won’t be expected to match their times.
#4 Esapekka Lappi (Hyundai i20 N Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: 43rd-DNF-12th
Best Chile result: 6th (2019)
After a perfect start with that drought-breaking win in Sweden, Esapekka Lappi’s part-season has tailed off quite dramatically in terms of results.
Not for the first time in his career, he travels to a rally openly admitting that it could be his last – unsure what the future holds in the context of Hyundai potentially looking for a full-time driver to occupy its third seat next year.
In theory, Chile presents a strong opportunity for Lappi to either stake his claim for the future or to sign off on a high note. The stages ought to suit him well and he will start with what’s likely to be the best road position of any proven winner. But he did crash out spectacularly on the first stage one year ago, leaving him without the same recent experience that many others have.
#13 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: DNF-49th-9th
Best Chile result: 13th (2023)
Rally Chile presents a big milestone in the development of Grégoire Munster, as the first event he returns to with previous experience in a Rally1 car. The Luxembourger himself has said as much, aiming to demonstrate his progress one year on from a solid debut that opened the door to an expanded program at the top level.
After a decent start to the summer, the last couple of rallies have been less than ideal for Munster with offs in Finland and Greece. He’s going to want to avoid a similar outcome in Chile, but at the same time also try to show some performance.
With a rare experience advantage over team-mate Fourmaux, and a last chance this season to start far back on gravel, Friday is surely a golden opportunity to light up the stage times.
#22 Mārtiņš Sesks/Renārs Francis (Ford Puma Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: 7th-5th-48th
Best Chile result: N/A
As for Pajari, Chile is a well-deserved bonus drive for Mārtiņš Sesks. Of course, direct comparisons will be made difficult by the fact that Sesks won’t be running with the assistance of hybrid power. But we found out in Poland that that won’t necessarily stop him from fighting towards the front.
What does change compared to Poland and Latvia is his knowledge of the rally. Those were two events of which Sesks had recent experience in hand over the competition. Now he’s going to a rally he’s never been to before, where many others competed one year ago. At the same time, the characteristics are not as vastly different as if this were an asphalt event or a rougher gravel rally.
In that sense, this is a crucial chance for Sesks to show what he’s capable of when he doesn’t know the roads and stake his claim for a bigger opportunity in the future.
