Thierry Neuville scored a surprise Rally Portugal victory, atoning for his Croatia powerstage blunder, after Sébastien Ogier suffered a penultimate stage puncture.
Neuville’s winning margin was 16.3 seconds over Oliver Solberg with Elfyn Evans completing the podium to extend his lead of the World Rally Championship.
Ogier eventually finished sixth.
“It’s a very special one,” Neuville confessed. “After what happened in Croatia and the struggle we have for a while, this one is very well timed – not only for me and Martijn but for the whole team, the people that surround us the whole year and fight hard.
“Obviously I let them down in Croatia but we fight back here, we never give up and that paid this weekend. We were always up there, always in a good rhythm and always got through, and at the end we got the victory we deserved earlier.”
Through Rally Portugal’s early phases it looked as if Adrien Fourmaux might deliver Hyundai’s maiden victory of 2026, but a mistake on Friday afternoon – where he lost braking performance, ran off the road and got two punctures as a result – dumped him to sixth, forcing him into a salvage mission where he ultimately recovered to fourth (and a powerstage win).
Ogier looked destined for victory until the penultimate stage of the four-day weekend
That error afforded Ogier, who struggled on Thursday with the setup of his Yaris, to take a lead he’d valiantly fight for through Saturday, despite Solberg suddenly leaping ahead by midday service.
Ogier’s time loss on the stage prior made him realize he needed to increase the risks, and he duly did so across the afternoon to lead the rally by 21.9s ahead of the final day from Neuville, as Solberg dropped back with a puncture and a half spin.
Managing the gap across the final morning, Ogier was forced to stop on SS22 of 23 and change a tire which cost him two minutes and a record-extending eighth Rally Portugal win.
“It should have been our rally, but there are things you can’t control,” said Ogier. “Everything we could control we did well, but it was hard luck for us today. I feel like we deserved a bit better.”
Solberg’s second place marked his first podium since victory at January’s Monte Carlo Rally and he moved to third in the championship as a result, 31 points behind Evans.
Takamoto Katsuta finished fifth after a weekend where he struggled for confidence, while Sami Pajari placed seventh, losing a fifth consecutive podium finish due to a tire change on the same stage as Ogier.
Katsuta’s now 12 points adrift of Evans with Pajari falling to fifth in the championship, one point behind Fourmaux.
Fourmaux was another to lead Portugal before falling back
A tire choice mistake, where he had wanted a soft-biased package but ended up with hard, undid Dani Sordo’s weekend as he was unable to recover the time lost on Friday morning, not enjoying the changeable weather and slippy conditions.
He finished eighth ahead of M-Sport’s returning Mãrtiņš Sesks with Josh McErlean restarting the final day after his retirement on Saturday’s Lousada superspecial.
McErlean almost won the first pass of Fafe before Robert Virves stormed through late on in his Rally2 Škoda, but stopped to change a tire on the powerstage. Team-mate Jon Armstrong did not return on Sunday after his crash on Saturday afternoon.
After a rally-long battle with Jan Solans, Teemu Suninen won WRC2 in his Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 – helping Janni Hussi claim her first WRC2 victory as a co-driver. Roope Korhonen was second ahead of Andreas Mikkelsen after Solans lost two minutes with a mistake on the penultimate stage.
Yohan Rossel remains the champioship leader, but crashed into the scenery on Saturday to record a zero-point score in Portugal.
