World Rally Championship titles have been won from worse positions.
Perhaps Richard Burns is the best example as he failed to score points in either of the first two rounds, yet still wound up world champion.
But there’s no denying that Thierry Neuville wanted to start his very first title defense in a stronger manner than he did last weekend.
In stark contrast to the previous Monte Carlo Rally where the Belgian claimed maximum points in a swashbuckling, statement drive, Neuville picked up just nine in 2025 – eight for sixth place overall, plus only one Super Sunday point.
And the impression he left was not of a driver on the path to a world title. He managed to go off on the same corner twice, made a rookie mistake clipping a rock face and failed to win a stage on a weekend seven other drivers did.
“It went wrong on a big braking in front of a hairpin where obviously I made a mistake. I misjudged the grip from the tires, the studded tires, on the dry Tarmac, and I got surprised. So that was the first hit, then obviously the puncture, then the technical issue. So all in all, a challenging weekend,” Neuville summarized to DirtFish.
Neuville's first rally as #1 didn't go to plan, but he's not concerned it'll become a pattern
Clearly, lots of things went wrong on round one. But should there be cause for concern, particularly in Neuville’s Sunday performance? Only once last year did he score as few points (Croatia, where a mistake from Martijn Wydaeghe sent them off).
“We needed conditions which put us a bit in favor and they didn’t really today,” the world champion reasoned.
“Especially, yeah, also there was less ice than we expected. So at the end, I think it was a challenging Sunday for us. Cars were going faster and faster by each car as well, especially in the powerstage. So there was not much to play for us today.”
Overall, Neuville will be keen to forget Monte. But he’s confident it won’t leave any scars, and that this won’t be the start of a struggle.
“No, no, no. I mean, it was Monte-specific,” he said, “and, yeah, we used that weekend for a bit of testing at some point as well.
“So all in all, I think we just need to look forward, try to forget, take the few conclusions we can take from the weekend if there are some, and that’s it.
“Let’s say that, yeah, we can be quite optimistic about Sweden, for sure,” Neuville added.
“The better road position will help us to have a better rally. But still, we need to take the benefit from that, so that will be our target for the upcoming event.”