Thierry Neuville conceded he felt “very nervous” before heading into the Rally Portugal powerstage, more so than at any other rally in recent memory.
On Croatia Rally Neuville had inherited the lead when Sami Pajari suffered a puncture, only to crash out on the powerstage when he slid wide and hit the concrete base of a damaged signpost.
When Sébastien Ogier suffered a puncture on Portugal’s penultimate stage, it opened the door for Neuville to finally clinch Hyundai’s first win of the 2026 season and make amends for his Croatia misstep.
“Honestly, I don’t know when the last time I felt that nervous ahead of the powerstage was,” Neuville told DirtFish. “I mean, the main reason was because, first of all, we had to bring back that victory for the team. It was such an important one.
“But also, the weather information we had was that it should start raining exactly at our starting time. And I got the first few drops 30 seconds before going to the start line. So I expected the rain to start and finally it kept raining for a drop, getting a few drops for the first two kilometers and then it was pretty dry towards the end.”
Neuville wasn’t the only one; his co-driver Martijn Wydaeghe was in a similar boat and was obsessively checking the weather, afraid it would ruin their chances of victory.
“My heartbeat on the bicycle going up the Mont Ventoux in France is much lower than what I had before the stage,” said Wydaeghe.
“All the pictures that we saw from the stage, one hour before we start the powerstage, it looked very, very tricky. Every 10 minutes we got an update from our meteo guy saying that a big cloud is forming and at our start time the big rain should come. So yeah, you are looking at the sky all the time.”
Once into the stage there was more reason for stress for the rest of the Hyundai team: Neuville and Wydaeghe went fastest at the first split, raising the question of whether they were pushing too hard with victory on the line.
But Wydaeghe pointed out that not playing it too safe was a lesson learned from Croatia.
“We have learned from what we have done maybe wrong in Croatia,” he said. “So we keep our own rhythm without risk. But as soon we saw that the conditions on the stage were actually quite OK, much less slippery than we expected, we just kept a good rhythm and I think the stage was just improving car by car as well.
“It felt comfortable. I also said mid-stage: ‘OK, Thierry, you’re doing well. Come on!’”
Back at the service park, Hyundai’s WRC sporting director Andrew Wheatley had already begun stressing out during the penultimate stage, when it became clear rocks on the racing line were a risk factor for every driver.
“The nerves on the stage before were worse,” said Wheatley. “When the [Vieira do Minho] stage started to unravel and Sami got his puncture, the weather conditions were really difficult and then we saw Séb stop. Then there’s nothing we can do.
“We know that we want to try and whisper in the ear of Thierry and Martijn and say: ‘Just back off a little bit’. But we just watched every corner and they took to the absolute maximum; they wanted to stay in touch right to the last minute because anything can happen in these conditions.
“Honestly, I cannot remember a time when I was as nervous as trying to will them to just slow down a little bit because they’ve done what they need to do.
“Before the powerstage, what they learnt in Croatia was a very, very, very hard lesson. Immediately, they could reach in and grab that experience. Motorsport is difficult, rallying is really about experiences and the more you can bring from each experience, the better opportunity you have to be able to to drag that that out of you when you need it. And he absolutely did that.”
