Thierry Neuville survived a half-spin to extend his Rally Croatia lead, as his Hyundai team-mate Ott Tänak picked up his first stage win on the World Rally Championship’s newest asphalt event.
Neuville headed into the Friday afternoon loop with a 7.3s lead over Toyota’s Elfyn Evans, having won three of the four stages.
Following the midday service, the drivers returned to the 4.31-mile Rude – Plešivica test, the scene of WRC points leader Kalle Rovanperä’s rally-ending crash in the morning.
It appeared the stage might also claim Neuville when he turned his Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC into a half-spin on the exit of a twisty left-hand hairpin less than a couple of minutes into the second pass through the stage.
But the 13-time WRC event winner recovered and went faster than his two closest rivals – the Toyota duo of Evans and Sébastien Ogier.
“I’m first on the road, there are no lines,” Neuville said after the stage. “I have to make all of the lines.
“I had a spin in the hairpin, I was on the clutch waiting for the car to start but nothing happened so I lost a bit of time.”
Ogier, who made extensive set-up changes during the service break, said some of the sections were “like gravel”. He was 0.6s slower than Neuville, but half a second up on Evans.
Neuville’s team-mate Tänak topped a stage for the first time this weekend as he attempts to recover to the podium positions following a morning where he was at a loss to explain his lack of pace.
“We tried to do many changes to get more comfortable,” Tänak explained. “The conditions are so tricky, we’re happy to get through.”
Tänak’s stage win leaves him 24.3s shy of Neuville and 11.4s off the final podium position in the overall classification.
His team-mate Craig Breen was seventh fastest, slower than both M-Sport Ford Fiesta WRCs.
Photo: M-Sport WRT
Top-class debutant Adrien Fourmaux outpaced his team-mate Gus Greensmith for the fifth consecutive stage, and earned his maiden top-five stage time in fifth place. Greensmith was sixth, just three tenths adrift of Fourmaux’s time.
Takamoto Katsuta recorded the eighth-fastest time to close marginally on the eighth place in the overall standings that’s currently occupied by 2C Competition Hyundai’s Pierre-Louis Loubet, who was 1.1s slower than Katsuta on stage five.
Andreas Mikkelsen was fastest in the WRC2 class, as he continues his recovery following his SS2 shunt. He’s still nearly 40 minutes adrift of the class lead.
Defending champion Mads Østberg holds that lead but Nikolay Gryazin managed to shave 2.3s off it on stage five, to reduce the gap between the leading duo to 6.7s.
Teemu Suninen, who is making his first second-tier appearance since the 2018 Monte Carlo Rally, extended his advantage over Marco Bulacia and 2020 Junior WRC champion Tom Kristensson in third place.
Yohan Rossel claimed his third WRC3 stage win from five to extend his lead over three-time European Rally Champion Kajetan Kajetanowicz from 9.5s to 11.3s.
SS5 times
1 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai) 4m30.4s
2 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai) +1.0s
3 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota) +1.6s
4 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota) +2.1s
5 Adrien Fourmaux/Renaud Jamoul (M-Sport Ford) +2.7s
6 Gus Greensmith/Chris Patterson (M-Sport Ford) +3s
Leading positions after SS5
1 Neuville/Wydaeghe 32m19.3s
2 Evans/Martin +8.4s
3 Ogier/Ingrassia +12.9s
4 Tänak/Järveoja +24.3s
5 Craig Breen/Paul Nagle (Hyundai) +35.5s
6 Fourmaux/Jamoul +46.1s
7 Greensmith/Patterson +51.5s
8 Pierre-Louis Loubet/Vincent Landais (2C Competition Hyundai) +58.8s
9 Takamoto Katsuta/Daniel Barritt (Toyota) +1m08.4s
10 Mads Østberg/Torstein Eriksen (Citroën) +1m52.1s
