It’s the penultimate round of the 2024 season. Both titles remain up for grabs – but also with the possibility of both being wrapped up early by Hyundai. The question is: can they get the job done or will someone get in both Thierry Neuville and his team’s way?
The answer: possibly. But after spending the middle of the season sweeping away loose gravel, this is also Neuville and Hyundai’s chance to lead from the outset and leave the chasing pack behind on the Central European Rally. And as the form guide shows, that’s a realistic possibility.
#11 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: 4th-1st-2nd
Best CER result: 1st (2023)
Neuville comes into this rally knowing that, broadly speaking, a repeat of his 2023 CER success will likely be enough to make him world champion for the first time.
His margin of victory on last year’s rally appears decisive at first glance but it wasn’t the smoothest ride to get there: the wrong suspension setup, poor visibility and an overshoot held him back on the first day, though on the Saturday he quickly swung back into action and took the lead. When Kalle Rovanperä backed off, knowing a second world title in a row was his should he reach the finish in one piece, Neuville’s lead ballooned.
He’s also the form driver on asphalt this season. His Monte win was imperious and in Croatia, he’d led the way until a mistake sent him off up a bank and demoted him to third. In terms of pure pace and road position, Neuville is perfectly placed to make it two wins on the bounce in Central Europe. The real question is whether he’ll push ahead or play it safe, given a maiden world title is on the line.
#8 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: 3rd-3rd-DNF
Best CER result: 3rd (2023)
While all looks rosy for Neuville, team-mate Ott Tänak isn’t in the same position. He struggled to get the same sort of pace out of the i20 N Rally1 on sealed surfaces early in the year that Neuville did, clocking a pair of fourth places in Monte and Croatia. He suggested back then that he was not at one with the car and held hopes for stronger results on the loose stuff.
Tänak’s hopes for a stronger midseason transpired to a degree: retirements in Poland and Finland aside, he’s been on the podium at every round since Portugal in May. But catching Neuville in the drivers’ title race is a long-shot and the job his team will surely hope for him to execute will be another podium and strong points to ward off any last-minute push for the manufacturers’ crown from Toyota, after it slashed Hyundai’s lead from 35 to 17 points with a Rally Chile masterclass.
Aboard a Ford Puma last year Tänak wasn’t really a frontrunner in CER, already a minute and a half off the lead after the opening day. A litany of technical gremlins held him back over the weekend: a broken gear lever, hybrid system troubles, and a loss of hydraulic pressure that led to a trip off-road when he instinctively grabbed the handbrake which locked the front wheels on one of the German stages.
It was messy – but he still got a podium and 16 points at the end of it. Hyundai will be hoping for a similar result, albeit without a similarly troubled pathway to get there.
#17 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: 36th-16th-1st
Best CER result: 4th (2023)
To suggest that Sébastien Ogier is Toyota’s sealed-surface ringer would be a massive disservice to the eight-time world champion’s output this season – but, from a numbers standpoint, that’s exactly what he’s been, averaging 22.5 points per round on tar.
His two most recent rallies by comparison have been messy affairs. A turbo fault killed his hopes of a big result in Greece but he compounded that woe with a powerstage rollover. In Chile he clattered a bank that took a tire off the rim and forced a mid-stage wheel change, then clipped a rock that broke the front-right suspension and sent him into a ditch. His Sunday drive in South America certainly helped to make amends, delivering 12 crucial points for Toyota’s manufacturers’ championship account.
If Toyota wants Ogier to further close the gap to Hyundai, he’ll need this week to go better than his first CER outing. A flat tire from a broken rim dumped him down to 10th and while he eventually worked his way up to fourth, 15.8s short of the podium places, he’d mentally written himself off midway through the opening day.
“I have no motivation,” he declared after stage four. But this time the motivation will be higher: he’s been called upon to be Toyota’s knight in shining armor, here to rescue his team’s manufacturers’ championship ambitions. Neuville has been marginally faster on asphalt this season – but Ogier has a mission to rack up a massive points haul while the Belgian can afford a safer approach. That potentially makes Ogier the outright favorite to win this week.
#33 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: 2nd-18th-DNF
Best CER result: 31st (2023)
This time last year Evans was still in the title race. CER was what ended his hopes, sliding wide and smashing into a barn, leaving Rovanperä to pick up the pieces and clinch a second drivers’ title.
This year he’s realistically, if not mathematically, already out of the race. As with Ogier, this week is about securing a hefty haul of points to help Toyota try and pip Hyundai to the post in the marques’ race. And the good news is Evans’ asphalt form this year has been deceptively good.
At points where the grip levels were higher on the Monte and in Croatia, he was the pacesetter. He led the first half of the season’s opening rally and was taking the fight to Neuville. And despite CER’s reputation for slippery, low grip and wet roads, the forecast suggests this edition might be dry. On the evidence of this season, that’s good news for Evans.
The early phases of Chile also suggested Evans has regained his mojo, winning four stages on a single rally for the first time since 2023. Alas, Rovanperä simply overpowered him during the second part of the rally. But the outgoing world champion isn’t at CER and Neuville has another agenda to worry about – so CER presents a golden opportunity for Evans to finally get his first win of the season on the board.
#16 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Ford Puma Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: 5th-21st-3rd
Best CER result: 8th (2023)
Croatia gave us a tantalizing taste of what Fourmaux could offer up in Central Europe. The last asphalt WRC stage he tackled in anger represented a crucial breakthrough: he smashed everyone and scored his first powerstage victory by 3.8s. He’d also been battling for maximum Sunday points before clipping an anti-cut pole and breaking a steering arm.
Last year Fourmaux took on CER in a Rally2-spec Fiesta and defeated the army of Śkodas (all 24 of them!) to be fastest of the RC2 cars – albeit not a WRC2 win as he wasn’t a registered entry.
His recent form has also been good, even if the results sheet doesn’t clearly demonstrate it. Fifth in Chile belied his early pace. An alternator belt falling off led to him nicking a water pipe while fixing it, which in turn led to lateness penalties. But he scored two stage wins and easily had the pace to contend for another podium – and he was looking rapid in Greece until clipping a rock embedded inside a bank broke his Puma’s suspension.
Matching the raw pace of Ogier, Neuville and Evans across three days will be a tough ask. But Chile showed having a similar level of experience to his rivals through driving a Rally2 car, not a Rally1, is sufficient for getting him up to speed relative to his rivals. Fourmaux has been banging on the door of a first win for a few rallies now – this is potentially an even better opportunity than Japan to achieve that before the year is out.
#18 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: 30th-41st-6th
Best CER result: 5th (2023)
No driver will dread the form guide more than Takamoto Katsuta. After a string of retirements from promising positions early in the running of several rallies this season, Toyota chose to stand Katsuta down from its Rally Chile entry entirely and gave Sami Pajari the keys to the fourth GR Yaris Rally1 instead.
Taking a wheel off on the Acropolis while 0.2s from the lead and smacking his Yaris into a tree on Finland’s Ruuhimäki test led to a hard reset. After stepping out of the car at the previous round, CER is a chance to start from a clean sheet of paper and forget about what the form guide says.
On last year’s CER Katsuta struggled when the stages were turned muddy by rain, unable to fully commit to his notes after they’d been amended by the gravel crew running ahead of him. The irony when contrasted to his 2024 escapades is that because he lacked a positive feeling aboard the car and struggled for pace, he brought the car home neatly in one piece for a fifth-place finish, fending off the second Hyundai of Teemu Suninen.
Heroics on his return aren’t really the order of the day in CER for Katsuta. While Ogier and Evans throw the kitchen sink at trying to catch Hyundai in the makes’ race, he is the insurance policy. A clean run to the finish is an absolute must.
#5 Sami Pajari/Enni Mälkönen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: 6th-4th-4th
Best CER result: 5th (2023)
CER will be Pajari’s first taste of asphalt aboard a Rally1 car in a competitive setting. After a headline-grabbing debut in Finland – both for crashing on the very first stage in the forests and then winning a stage later the same day – a sensible drive in Chile followed. In between he won WRC2 in Greece in a tiebreak scenario when he finished in a dead head with Robert Virves.
The only time where Pajari hasn’t looked like a driver with prowess beyond his years was when the fog descended in Chile and his pace relative to the frontrunners dropped off – understandably so given his inexperience and a clear goal to simply complete every stage to accrue experience, rather than chase a result.
Like Chile, CER will be a huge learning experience. Pajari is by no means slow on asphalt – he scored a WRC2 podium in Croatia earlier this season – but CER was the only event last year where he finished off the Rally2 podium places on pace alone rather than through retirement. Most importantly though he traversed every stage, clawing his way up to fifth in class as others fell by the wayside.
The pressure remains off: he’s been entered in a fourth Yaris not nominated for manufacturers’ points. Beating the second M-Sport car and the third Hyundai would be considered a resounding success – though that outcome isn’t why he’s here. It’s about learning the stages so when he comes back in the future, he’s ready to go toe-to-toe with his more experienced rivals.
#9 Andreas Mikkelsen/Torstein Eriksen (Hyundai i20 N Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: 6th-6th-6th
Best CER result: 23rd (2023)
There’s no getting around this: aside from Rally1 rookie Grégoire Munster, Andreas Mikkelsen has the worst asphalt form of any factory driver this season. Even Takamoto Katsuta, who was benched for the last event in Chile after a series of messy rallies, has averaged five points more per asphalt event this year the Mikkelsen.
Before the season began, eyebrows were raised when Hyundai’s announcement of its third car rotation was announced. Mikkelsen would in effect be the sealed surface specialist, while Dani Sordo and Esapekka Lappi would share the gravel rounds.
He was off the pace on both the Monte and in Croatia, looking especially uncomfortable on the former as he struggled to adapt to the increased downforce of the Rally1 cars after so long pedalling a Škoda in WRC2. On the gravel in Poland he looked more like the Mikkelsen of old, battling at the sharp end of the field until a puncture derailed his hopes of fighting Rovanperä for the win.
Mikkelsen’s WRC2 title ambitions almost collapsed on CER last year but that wasn’t really his fault: route note crews were banned in the second tier last year and after hitting a patch of gravel he spun off at high speed and broke the suspension on his Fabia RS. Title rival Yohan Rossel had already suffered a similar fate on the very first stage. This year, as is now also the case in WRC2 from 2024, he’ll have his gravel crew feeding him info to avoid a similar fate.
More than anything, this is Mikkelsen’s last chance to impress Cyril Abiteboul. Neither Lappi nor Sordo are looking for a full-time future at Hyundai – but Mikkelsen certainly is.
“I will have a pretty different approach compared to Monte Carlo and Croatia,” said Mikkelsen ahead of the rally. Hopefully it works.
#13 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1)
Last 3 WRC results: 7th-DNF-49th
Best Chile result: 7th (2023)
While Rally Chile wasn’t Grégoire Munster’s best result of the season, it was his best performance. Now back on rallies where he’s driven a Ford Puma in the past, this is the M-Sport rookie’s best chance to press on and score some impressive results, rather than focusing only on building experience and learning both the car and the stages.
Munster will be one of the few drivers who will be praying for plenty of rain that cakes the roads in mud – the conditions on the opening day last year will have been reminiscent of those from his formative years competing on Belgian asphalt.
The downside is road order will now work against him on the opening day as last Rally1 car on the road. But if he can’t start strongly he can at least finish strongly when the order is inverted: on his way to seventh place in Croatia, he admitted he hadn’t utilized the advantage of his starting position enough.
There was a glimpse of strong pace on the Saturday morning of Monte, going less than half a second per kilometer off the pace and setting top five times until he slide wide and beached his car on a verge.
CER and Japan are Munster’s chance to shine: if he can match and potentially defeat Mikkelsen and Katsuta, it would mark a clear step forward from his early-season efforts.
