Twenty-nine. And two. If two numbers are keeping Thierry Neuville awake right now, it’s those two.
Dropping the ball from the championship lead two rounds from home isn’t unheard of. Neuville knows – he did himself in 2018. Elfyn Evans did it two years later. Mikko Hirvonen, Walter Röhrl, Marcus Grönholm, Guy Fréquelin, Carlos Sainz and Didier Auriol have all been there too.
Auriol was probably the biggest surprise of that lot. Remember 1992? The then Jolly Club Lancia driver won just about everything he touched, topping the podium six times in seven starts. The wheels started to come off his Delta-based attack – quite literally – in Sanremo, but with Spain and Britain’s RAC remaining, he remained very much in the race. Going off the road in Catalonia and engine failure in Kielder killed the job for him.
But none of the above had the numbers two and 29 to work with. Nobody has let a lead like that slip from their grasp.
Will Neuville be the first? No.
How can I be so sure? Simple, I can’t.
Neuville is in a commanding positon in the title race
But please Thierry, don’t drop it. You’ve earned this one, you deserve it and, let’s face it, you’ve waited long enough for it. I’ll wager when you finished second in the championship with M-Sport back in 2013, you’d never have imagined it would take you another 11 years to go one better.
Doesn’t matter. This is your moment.
Now, do you know Brad Gilbert? He’s a tennis coach from California, so no real reason why you should. He has some advice for you. When I say for you, his book wasn’t written exactly for you, but it can be interpreted in your favor for the next two events. Gilbert’s advice is simple: win ugly.
What does that mean? Kind of what it says on the tin, it doesn’t matter how you do it, just do it. Gilbert was about helping tennis players out-think their opponents rather than just trying to hit the ball harder than them. He was about winning without being blessed with what was seen as a naturally beautiful game. And, as we know, in a mechanical sport like rallying, perfection (ie the naturally beautiful game) is not always possible.
I was, I’ve got to say, a little bit disappointed with you in Chile, Thierry. Landing on the Pacific side of the Andes, you were talking the talk. You were talking about getting through with no trouble, playing the long game. And that you did. But then after the event you talked to Colin Clark about missing performance and being a bit disappointed.
Neuville was left a touch frustrated after Rally Chile by Hyundai's deficit to Toyota
Don’t be. By my math, to still be champion you had 11.33 (recurring) points to lose in South America and you only lost five. Going to CER next week, you can afford to ship 14.5 to Ott Tänak. Now, in terms of the current points structure… you know what, I’m not going to go there. But maybe have a quick word with your team-mate Seb Marshall, he’s good at this kind of thing.
My point is, trust in the process.
You’re not bad on slippery Tarmac and your i20 N Rally1 is pretty handy too. Ignore everybody (apart from me, obviously) telling you this championship is yours to lose.
Take a deep breath and become a world champion.
