At times in his career it looked like it just wasn’t meant to be, but since the very beginning of 2024 Thierry Neuville has looked like a world champion in-waiting.
Ruthlessly fast, consistent and there to pick up the pieces when others faltered, nobody can deny Neuville deserves his now official World Rally Championship title.
These are the 10 moments that decided the 2024 season.
Neuville’s Monte domination
Neuville opened his 2024 account with a full 30-pointer
No Kalle Rovanperä, Ott Tänak back at Hyundai and a new points system meant there was plenty of unknowns heading into 2024’s opening event in Monte Carlo.
But Neuville ensured it was his name that was penciled-in as the championship favorite.
Amid all the talk of rally winners not necessarily scoring the most points from a weekend anymore (which duly happened at the next round in Sweden), Neuville put all that to bed with a classy champion’s drive on the Monte.
Rally winner, fastest on the powerstage, fastest on Super Sunday. This was a statement drive if ever there was one.
Tänak’s familiar stumble
For the fourth time in as many tries, Tänak suffered a tricky start to a season with Hyundai
Returning to Hyundai after leaving just a year earlier, Ott Tänak was seen by many as a championship favorite given he was the only full-time driver to have won one before.
But as has been a theme of the Estonian’s time driving for Hyundai, he didn’t get off to the best of starts.
While Neuville scored a full 30 at round one, Tänak scored exactly half as he struggled for ultimate asphalt pace aboard the i20 and became momentarily stuck at a tricky corner on Friday morning.
The off at the next round in Sweden was however far more surprising, and damaging. History has repeatedly shown how damaging a bad start to a campaign can be and it wasn’t working out for Tänak. His seemingly unavoidable accident on the succeeding Safari Rally Kenya further rubbed salt in the wounds.
Elfyn Evans meanwhile scored the most points in Sweden although it was Esapekka Lappi who won.
Evans fails to capitalize
Elfyn Evans chased Neuville hard for most of the season but never managed to win a rally
But in a year where he too was seen as an obvious title bet given his runner-up finishes in three of the previous four seasons, Evans never managed to truly kick on.
Croatia was perhaps the best example. In a huge fight with Neuville and team-mate Sébastien Ogier that could have gone any one of three ways, Evans jostled for the lead and was in true contention for the win.
But when Neuville went off on SS18 after a late pacenote, Evans wasn’t there to pick up the pieces. He too spun and dropped time, handing Ogier – who had dropped a bit back – a lead he was never going to relinquish.
While Evans only dropped one point to Neuville, the symbolism of the mistake was what lived in the memory.
However he did end the season strongly with three podiums to close out the season, including a win in Japan.
Ogier misses Poland
How different could the title race have looked had Ogier not been ruled out of Poland?
Ogier was never meant to be a contender for the drivers’ title, but due to the quality of his performances he ended up becoming a real factor (spoiler alert: more on that later).
While we all initially thought it was after Rally Finland that Ogier was asked if he would commit to the rest of the season, we now know it was during Sardinia where Ogier was first asked about such a move to help out his team.
And that makes his absence from Rally Poland – due to an accident on the pre-event recce which sidelined him – all the more intriguing.
Without that missed opportunity to score, how much more of a threat could Ogier have been?
Rally Finland
Ogier flew to victory in Finland on a weekend where Neuville's series lead ballooned
So much happened on the WRC’s gravel grand prix. But in terms of the championship, the main takeaway was the gift Neuville had been given.
Rovanperä should have won; everyone knows it. But for a rock in the line on the final corner of the second-to-last stage, he would have.
However his exit opened the door for Ogier to win and Neuville to claim second – and for them to inherit more Saturday points with Rovanperä’s exit.
Tänak crashing out and retiring for good on Friday (off the back of a luckless Poland and Latvia), and Evans then throwing it all away on Sunday too, suddenly moved Neuville into the clear ascendency.
With a lead of eight points heading into Finland, suddenly he was out front by 27. And Ogier was his closest challenger.
Neuville’s measured reply
Neuville faced jibes from Ogier in Greece but got the last laugh
Now officially commited to a ‘full’ season, Ogier meant business when the WRC visited Greece for the Acropolis. But for a turbo problem on Friday, he probably would have won.
Those minutes, and positions, lost put the eight-time champion on the back foot however, and he turned to mind games to try and destablize Neuville.
“Maybe he should learn to open the road because he’s not really fast from first on the road, he just cries all the time,” Ogier jibed – a reference to Neuville’s outburst at the end of Rally Latvia’s first day where he would’ve been last of the Rally1 cars but for team-mate Lappi slowing for him.
Perhaps this would have worked five or six years ago when Neuville and Ogier were last fighting for titles, but not in 2024. Repeatedly, Neuville was pressed for comment on Ogier’s words but the Belgian remained tight-lipped.
Until Ogier crashed on the powerstage and Neuville won, then he had his moment.
“Yeah, I can only smile,” he grinned. “I don’t know what to say.”
For the first time, Neuville’s lead was over 30 points (a maximum score). It was becoming a question of when, not if.
Toyota’s clean sweep
A perfect 55-point score for Toyota in Chile reignited hopes that looked to have faded
Meanwhile in the manufacturers’ championship, Hyundai was looking sweet too. The retirements of Rovanperä and Evans in Finland had been particularly pivotal, but Ogier dropping points on the final day of Greece helped Hyundai out too.
Despite what Jari-Matti Latvala later admitted were ill-judged, heat of the moment comments about Toyota being out of it after Greece, Toyota showed it wasn’t willing to go down without a fight in Chile.
It became the first manufacturer to score the maximum of 55 points from a weekend, with first a second on Saturday, the powerstage and Super Sunday, to slash Hyundai’s advantage by 17 points.
Hyundai was still favorite, but the matter was far from resolved.
Neuville makes himself wait
The expectation was for Neuville to claim the title at CER, but an error extended the wait
The supporters club was ready. Plans were reserved, just in case. Many – probably even Neuville himself – saw Central European Rally as the coronation of the 2024 world champion.
Repeatedly, Neuville insisted it wasn’t the priority. But leading at the end of the first day was a major bonus. He was doing more than he needed.
But a Saturday spin, followed by an off-road excursion into a field that for a second looked as if it may beach Neuville’s Hyundai, altered everything. Clinching the title a round early was no longer on, and instead a Tänak win helped him reduce his team-mate’s lead to 25 points.
“Of course, we would all have liked to take it here: the fans, the Belgian supporters, the family was there,” Neuville admitted. “Nevertheless, I know as well that they will be very happy as well if we take it in Japan finally.”
Neuville wins it the wild way
Thierry Neuville sealed the deal early as his team-mate Tänak crashed from the lead
The final showdown of 2024 could not have been more dramatic.
With a 25-point advantage over his only standing rival, Tänak, Neuville only needed six points from the entire weekend to crown himself champion. But a turbo problem on Friday left him 15th overnight and with it all to do as Tänak led the way.
Fighting back to seventh by the end of Saturday to provisionally secure four points, Neuville needed two from Sunday’s suite to get the job done. But it turned out he didn’t.
Caught out towards the end of Sunday’s final stage, Tänak crashed out of the rally and handed his team-mate the world title in an instant. Not the way he would have envisaged winning it, but nobody could say that it wasn’t absolutely deserved.
Tänak’s crash has consequences
In a season where it looked to have lost it, Toyota was again crowned manufacturers' champion
But Tänak’s accident, which he described as a “complete f*** up”, had further consequences, as it opened the door to Toyota to steal an unlikely manufacturers’ championship.
Heading into the final day of the season, Hyundai held an 11-point advantage over Toyota – but Tänak’s exit lost him the 18 points he’d reserved on Saturday, and gave them directly to Evans.
However with Neuville and Mikkelsen leading the Super Sunday standings, incredibly Toyota and Hyundai were level heading into the powerstage. It would all be decided on the very last stage of the season.
And Ogier stepped up – beating Neuville to the powerstage win effectively guaranteed Toyota the championship in a season where it had looked to have squandered it with Hyundai sussing out the secret to success on Sundays far sooner.
But in the end, Toyota won the war – albeit by just three points!
