Thierry Neuville has been handed a one-minute time penalty, and fined €1500, for contesting the 15th stage of Rally Sweden without his helmet correctly fastened.
The 2024 world champion is currently seventh overall at Rally Sweden, the second round of the 2026 World Rally Championship, after getting sucked into a snowbank on Friday morning and losing over a minute as he unfastened his seat belts in order to clear his fogged-up windshield.
Neuville set the fastest time on Saturday’s final stage, SS15 Umeå Sprint, by 1.1 seconds from Takamoto Katsuta, but onboard footage revealed the chin strap on his helmet was not fastened.
While Hyundai team manager, Pablo Marcos, pointed out to the stewards that the “extreme weather conditions” meant Neuville was “unable to feel that the chin strap was not properly secured” – and the stewards acknowledged Neuville did not intentionally do so – the Belgian was still in breach of safety protocol.
One minute has therefore been added to his stage time for SS15, but Neuville keeps his seventh position overall as he had 1m14.8s in hand over M-Sport’s Jon Armstrong.
