Colorful glasses. That was my first impression of Thierry Neuville. And confident. Supremely confident.
My first interview with Thierry was in 2009. It wasn’t my idea – I didn’t know who he was. I was asked by BF Goodrich to talk to him and offer some feedback on his media abilities. He was in the running for the BF Goodrich Drivers’ Team Peugeot 207 S2000 at that year’s Ypres Rally.
Was he a good interview? I honestly don’t remember. Did the event go well? Yes. And no. Yes, he was quick on his maiden four-wheel drive outing, but only until he crashed. If you’re thinking there’s a case for arguing that event was his early career in microcosm, you might be right.
A year later, on his Junior World Rally Championship debut (and only his second WRC round ever) in Turkey, he was sitting second. That was impressive, so I sought him out. And found a pair of red spectacles staring back at me. Immediately, it was obvious there was something about Thierry Neuville. His answers were considered, reasoned, opinionated.
Nothing’s changed. He’s just got faster. And faster.
His arrival on the WRC radar was delayed slightly by the Intercontinental Rally Challenge, where he drove a Kronos Racing-run Peugeot Bel-Lux team 207. I covered the odd IRC round here and there, but not too many. An eyebrow was raised when he drove with sublime maturity to beat Jan Kopecky’s Škoda in Corsica – but to back that up with a tooth and nail Sanremo success by just a second and a half over Andreas Mikkelsen was a result which marked him out.
Neuville caught the attention of many with his exploits in a Peugeot 207 S2000
Citroën team principal Yves Matton had clearly seen something – he picked him up and offered him a full-time WRC seat aboard a DS3 WRC. When he started out on that program, the season-opening Monte Carlo Rally was only his seventh round of the championship. He learned fast. His maiden stage win came in México, just two rallies later, and his first podium was a year down the road – when he returned to León aboard a factory Ford Fiesta RS WRC.
The second half of that 2013 season was when Neuville really started to show consistent pace. On the podium for six of the last rallies, he finished runner-up to Sébastien Ogier in just his second full-time season.
He took it in his stride. And moved to a third team in as many years when he joined Hyundai.
This was when Neuville shifted through the gears in every aspect of his life. He stopped looking like a boyband extra with his ripped jeans and Britpop hairdo.
He found himself a pair of orange Oakleys, popped them on beneath a Red Bull cap and started bossing the Alzenau-based team.
One of my abiding memories of Neuville’s debut season with Hyundai was when he broke his duck at Rallye Deutschland. That wasn’t the only thing he broke in Trier.
Sitting in London’s City Airport I was enjoying a very early breakfast before boarding for the short hop over to Luxembourg. TV news popped up a portrait picture of the Belgian, which was odd. This was London. All was revealed when the picture cut to an i20 tumbling through the vineyards.
Luxair did the job and got me into service to talk to Neuville a couple of hours later. Except he wasn’t talking. Those moments were very few and far between.
Consistently, Neuville has been great company and a great talker. The place where I used to work had a bit of an end-of-season bash and hosting Neuville for the evening was always an absolute pleasure.
At that time, Neuville was locked on to a world title. It was a matter of time. The first incarnation of i20 wasn’t, if we’re honest, really up to the job. The 2017 car, however, was a ripper.
Remember the first two rallies of that year? Neuville was totally in control of Monte Carlo, 51 seconds up on Sébastien Ogier and heading with relative comfort to a round one win. Then he clipped a bridge and that was that. Round two, he was 43 seconds up on Jari-Matti Latvala with only a final-day cruise between him and victory, then he clipped a marker pole at the Karlstad trotting track.
Hmm… This wasn’t going the right way. As others had jumped ship and switched cars, Neuville had built a team around himself, but was struggling to make the best use of that team. Then that disastrous 2022 car arrived. As Toyota delivered title after title and the Ogier era became the Rovanperä era, Belgium’s finest hour looked like it might have been put on hold again.
2017 was a big chance Neuville let slip, but he's finally atoned for that in 2024
But Neuville never gave up.
The tenacity he has shown is a character trait which helped him stand on top of the world in Japan on Sunday. You could argue he didn’t win this title in Toyota City, he won it in Africa when he recovered from fuel pump problems to crush Super Sunday. Or Sardinia, where he put a Saturday shunt behind him to win another sensational Sunday.
Quite simply, he’s stuck at it. Not just this year, but for almost two decades.
As with all elite athletes, there’s two sides to Thierry. There’s the Neuville we’ve been allowed to know and love, but there’s also the single-minded, dedicated and entirely selfish person that’s absolutely necessary to be the best in the world. At times we’ve seen a glimpse of that – Safari last season was a low point when he was excluded for illegal recce, but talk to me about that and I’ll point you in the direction of Craig Breen’s best friend Patrick Croke. As the pair mourned the loss of the Irishman, Neuville understood Paddy’s loss and told him they would do Ravens Rock Rally together in Craig’s memory.
From my perspective, Neuville’s a class act and a dream to work with. No matter how tough the moment, he’s always professional and always ready to deliver a quote. Even when the analysis has been stinging, he’s swallowed it and spoken.
Thierry Neuville, it took a while, but you’re the very best in the world. Good for you. And keep wearing those DirtFish orange glasses.
