Thierry Neuville’s slim World Rally Championship title hopes have been dealt a major blow as he retired from SS4 of the Monza Rally, bringing the stage to a stop.
Neuville headed to the final round 24 points adrift of points leader Elfyn Evans with 30 still available, so still had a mathematical chance of clinching his first world championship.
But those slim hopes have been dashed as first he smacked a concrete bollard on one of the several chicanes added to the banking section and then drowned his Hyundai’s engine in a watersplash, approaching at low speed following his earlier incident.
Neuville repeatedly tried to fire his i20 Coupe WRC back up to no avail.
It compounds a difficult start for Neuville, who was ninth at the time of his stoppage after getting caught out in the mud and sliding into a barbed-wire fence on Friday’s first test.
The remaining three world championship contenders are all bunched together, separated by just 3.4 seconds. Sébastien Ogier leads the trio in third place with Evans another 3s back, but he again failed to complete a stage without any mishap.
On Cinturato, Ogier overshot a square right at the end of the banking section. Mercifully for the Toyota driver, all he collided with were some plastic bollards but it cost him valuable time.
Evans, who beat his team-mate and title rival by a second on SS4, said: “I was a bit too careful expecting it to be worse than it was but equally there was just so much standing water it’s crazy, you can’t do anything.”
Esapekka Lappi continues to lead the rally by 3.3s over Neuville’s team-mate Dani Sordo after both drivers, plus Kalle Rovanperä, were given the same time as Tänak for the stage.
Andreas Mikkelsen, who was third before the start of the stage, completed the test at rally speed and has fallen to seventh spot ahead of Ole Christian Veiby, WRC2 leader Adrien Fourmaux and his Eurosol Racing team-mate Emil Lindholm.
Teemu Suninen, who suffered from engine problems on the first three Friday stages, was forced to retire from 11th place overall; his issues proving insurmountable for the M-Sport team to fix in 15-minute flexi-service.
SS4 times
1 Evans (Toyota) 11m56.5s
2 Ogier (Toyota) +1s
3 Tänak (Hyundai) +3.3s
4 Sordo (Hyundai) +3.3s
5 Rovanperä (Toyota) +3.3s
6 Lappi (M-Sport Ford) +3.3s
Leading positions after SS4
1 Lappi (M-Sport Ford) 35m30.9s
2 Sordo (Hyundai) +3.3s
3 Ogier (Toyota) +20.1s
4 Evans (Toyota) +23.1s
5 Tänak (Hyundai) +23.5s
6 Rovanperä (Toyota) +31.6s
7 Mikkelsen (Škoda) +34.7s
8 Veiby (2C Competition Hyundai) +55.9s
9 Fourmaux (M-Sport Ford) +1m04.4s
10 Lindholm (Škoda) +1m10.7s
