The World Rally Championship has delivered many intense days over the years, but Sunday in Japan was right up there with the best of them.
The twists and turns in both the drivers’ and manufacturers’ championships were breathtaking, but after it all Thierry Neuville deservedly lifted his first world title while Toyota grabbed the manufacturers’ from Hyundai right at the death.
Here are how the WRC drivers ranked in Japan, through the eyes of Colin Clark.
Toyota
Elfyn Evans 8/10
This was the best way possible to finish the season, a confidence boosting win ahead of a renewed effort to secure his maiden driver’s title in 2025. A tough year for Evans finishes on a high note.
The performance last weekend was consistent, if not spectacular. There’s clearly still some work to do with certain set-ups, he struggled in the afternoon on the second pass with hard compound tires, losing too much ground to Ott Tänak in what was then a battle for the lead.
Evans did what he always does though – he stuck in, stuckat it, took no risks, drove brilliantly when he felt comfortable, conservatively when he didn’t. Great way to finish the season with a win and with that win comes second place in the championship.
Takumoto Katsuta 8/10
It is impossible to overestimate the amount of pressure that Katsuta was under this weekend. Driving for his future, and that is not an exaggeration, he could not afford to make a single mistake. The need to balance pace and performance with consistency was extreme. And the pressure that came with it was super extreme.
He struggled to deal with that pressure at times, but at the end of the rally, on that powerstage, when he needed to show exactly what he can do, he delivered. Katsuta over the past two rallies has demonstrated that perhaps that missing piece in the jigsaw has actually now slotted in; that mental strength that’s needed to consistently perform at the highest level.
On the evidence of the past two events, and previous podiums and performances, Katsuta deserves his place in the team for a full season in 2025.
Sébastien Ogier 8/10
The fastest driver all weekend. Without any doubt. He has actually been the fastest driver in probably the past four rallies, but his points total doesn’t reflect that.
His plans to take a final win of the season and to boost Toyota’s manufacturers’ championship chances were scuppered on the opening stage of Friday morning with a puncture that cost him two minutes. Unusually for Ogier, he then struggled to find the motivation to push on. But when the chips were down, when a performance was needed, when a champion needed to step forward to claim a championship, Ogier was there in that powerstage.
It was a stunning drive. He reset everything: reset the mind, he reset the clocks, he reset his focus and he delivered as we’ve seen so many times in the past. Ogier, in that final stage, was utterly magnificent.
Hyundai
Thierry Neuville 8/10
I know it’s four eights in a row, but it’s about right!
It would have been very easy for Neuville to lose his concentration, to lose his focus, and for the head to drop after Friday’s technical issues dropped him way down the standings. But Saturday was the day to fight back, and my goodness me, did he fight back with some quality, some determination, some pace, to haul himself back up into agood point scoring position that then, more or less, take away Ott Tänak’s chances of claiming the driver’s title.
Not an easy weekend for Thierry Neuville, but a weekend with the ultimate result claiming the driver’s title for 2024. He’s looked nothing other than a world champion really since Monte Carlo this year; has led the championship from the opening round, fought off Evans, Tänak and Ogier, with his absolute consistency, rally after rally, making the most of difficult situations and outscoring others on a regular basis.
A weight is lifted from his shoulders. How much better canhe be next year? Well, he’s going to have to up it a little bit again. Everyone is going to have to up their performance, I suspect, to beat the returning Rovanperä. But for me, watch out! Thierry Neuville could be a percentage or two better next year than he has been this year. And that will be entertaining to watch.
Ott Tänak 0/10
I rarely give 0 because I understand that just to put the helmet on, to strap the belts up, to sit at the startline requires the most unbelievable amount of talent, of dedication, of bravery and because of that, I’m always reluctant to give zeroes. But there is no forgiving the mistake that Tänak made on Sunday.
That corner was not a corner that should have caught anyone out. It caught Tänak out, not because it was slippery, but because he was too fast into it. And the question has to be, why? With so much at stake, with such an enormous lead, with clear instructions from the team about what to do during the course of Sunday, Tänak made the most monumental error.
It’s hard to overestimate the potential consequences. Hyundai is looking for reasons to stay in the championship. Manufacturers compete for manufacturer titles. Drivers are the selfish ones. Maybe we saw a little bit of that on Sunday from Ott Tänak. It was one of the biggest mistakes and the most consequential mistakes that we will see for a very, very long time.
More than anyone else, Tänak needs a reset for 2025. It didn’t go his way this year. Yes, he had a little bit of bad luck but he made a lot of mistakes. He looked at times like a man who was tormented, and he’ll have to change that for 2025. Very, very disappointing from a man who’s been around long enough to know that those kind of mistakes should not happen.
Andreas Mikkelsen 5/10
Mikkelsen did his bit on Sunday, but one big mistake and one very small mistake really will define the weekend for Andreas Mikkelsen. His last outing in a Hyundai Rally1, I think that is almost without question, he didn’t do enough last weekend.
He was put in a difficult position right from the get-go of the 2024 season when he was asked to do Tarmac rallies rather than gravel rallies. Never been his strongest surface and he has shown, he certainly showed on Sunday, that he does have pace on Tarmac. But consistent pace is what’s needed to deliver results at the top level and unfortunately the mistake he made early on in the rally, and then that small but costly mistake that he made on the powerstage, really aren’t good enough – and Mikkelsen knows that.
Tough weekend for Mikkelsen and a difficult way, potentially, to say goodbye to Hyundai.
M-Sport Ford
Adrien Fourmaux 7/10
Great way to finish the year. It’s been a year of progress for Fourmaux and M-Sport. Another podium is just reward for that progress. Maybe not the pace that he was looking for, but again he is finding a way to work his way through rallies that are tricky, that are troublesome, that are challenging, and that are perhaps not comfortable.
And that’s a good sign. Pace will come, and we know the pace is there with Fourmaux. Pace with the package, the full package, the driver, the car, the co-driver, the rally, will come for Fourmaux, and he knows that. He’s a clever driver, and again last weekend he showed just how clever he is.
I liked the look of Fourmaux in Japan. And perhaps his last outing in the WRC in a Ford Puma will be a fitting end to his resurgence, his return to the M-Sport Ford World Rally Team.
Grégoire Munster 7/10
Some real pace from Munster over the weekend. It is a work in progress for Grégoire Munster and Rally1 cars. He put a lot of pressure on himself towards the end of the season, telling us openly that this was where he was going to perform, and to be fair, at times, he has performed.
He seems to have just about cut out those really annoying errors that quite often ended up with him sitting at the side of the road. He’s beginning to move on from that, and now he’s allowing himself to build a little bit of pace in the car, and that’s encouraging.
How much potential does Munster have? Well, that’s yet to be seen, and perhaps a second year in a Rally1 car will give us a better indication of that. Nothing earth-shattering from Munster, but glimmers of hope, real signs with particular stage times and particular splits throughout what was a difficult and challenging rally for everyone.
It was a good end to the year for Grégoire Munster. He went away a happy man and that is always preferable to leaving a season as a downbeat and unhappy man.
