Rallies are increasingly being decided by tight margins. Gone are the days where minutes and, to an extent, even seconds would separate the podium finishers. In the immensely competitive modern era of the World Rally Championship, it’s tenths of seconds that can be the difference between victory and defeat.
Nobody knows this more than Thierry Neuville. The Hyundai driver has been king of the final stage shootout in recent years, stealing the win from Elfyn Evans by 0.7 seconds in Argentina four years ago and inflicting the same treatment upon Sébastien Ogier in Sardinia a year later.
But of late, he has found himself on the wrong end of that equation.
Last month’s Rally Croatia was a case in point. Neuville led by 7.7s after Friday, but a poor tire choice from the Hyundai team cost him 27.3s to Ogier’s Toyota across four stages. He missed out on victory by 8.1s; an overshoot on the powerstage also robbing him of even more points.
Very often we are very close to fight for the victory or second or third place and every time we lose it by a few seconds or tenthsThierry Neuville
In the Arctic Circle for round two, Neuville lost out on second by just 2.3s, and wind the clock back to last year and Sardinia he was edged by team-mate Dani Sordo by only 5.1s too.
It’s therefore little wonder that Neuville returned from Croatia a little bit conflicted by his “rollercoaster” weekend. He’s noticed the recent trend, and wants to reverse it.
“We had some really great stages, but we also had some huge disappointments,” he said.
“Several things came together but at the end we just missed out by a little, a potential victory.
“So we have to analyze why such mistakes have been done and how to improve that for the future. Very often we are very close to fight for the victory or second or third place and every time we lose it by a few seconds or tenths.”
It would be hyperbolic to suggest Neuville is throwing away opportunities, but he’s absolutely right to be concerned by missing out on the higher steps of the podium by practically nothing.
His remarkable consistency – three third-place finishes from three starts – in 2021 is hugely commendable and because of that, Neuville is sitting in second place in the championship table, eight points adrift of Ogier.
But had he not overshot that junction on the Croatian powerstage, he would have most likely beaten Craig Breen and therefore be seven points shy. And had Hyundai mirrored Toyota’s tire strategy on Saturday morning, he could’ve been ahead and not behind in the championship.
Second is of course a better place than first to start on the road on next week’s Rally Portugal, but Neuville knows more than most how critical every championship point can be. Need we remind you that this is the man who’s finished second in the title race a scarcely believable five times?
As Neuville himself recognizes: “There’s always a chance and we know what can happen in rally.”
But relying on the lap of the gods is no title-winning strategy. Now that Neuville and new co-driver Martijn Wydaeghe appear to be close to fully acclimatized to each other, it’s time for them to seize every ounce of an opportunity that they’re given.
The Neuville of 2017 or 2018 would have done, but he might not have had the consistency to match the blinding speed. The consistency is now clearly there so, if Neuville can find his old killer instinct, his rivals may well be worried for the rest of this year…
