Ott Tänak has ensured the World Rally Championship drivers’ title race will go the final round of the season with victory on Central European Rally, with Hyundai also increasing its advantage over Toyota in the makes’ race.
A four-way battle for victory early on began with Tänak at the rear of the fight. But he picked off Toyota’s Elfyn Evans on Friday, then inherited second place when team-mate Neuville went off into a field and got stuck, dropping half a minute in the process.
Second then became first on Sunday morning when Sébastien Ogier ran wide 600 meters into the penultimate stage and whacked a tree, taking the left-rear wheel off his GR Yaris Rally1 and subsequently demolishing an electricity pole.
That left the way clear for Tänak to take the lead and score his second victory of the season, adding to his unexpected victory in Sardinia – which was also due to a late drama for Ogier.
Tänak ceded several championship points on the powerstage; he was only sixth-fastest and also dropped from second to fourth in the Sunday standings, having elected to back off after Ogier’s retirement.
“What happened before to Séb, it’s always difficult to fight a friend when something like this happens. It’s difficult to find feelings.
“Because everything changed especially in the manufacturers’ championship, we took care in this stage to bring the points home.”
Elfyn Evans was close to the pace of both Ogier and the two Hyundais throughout the rally but never quite able to beat them: he finished seven seconds behind Tänak to clinch second place overall, suggesting at several stage ends he’d not quite pushed hard enough.
“It’s hard to be fully happy after a weekend like that,” said Evans. “Some good moments, not a bad weekend overall but just missing a few little bits here and there. It seems, especially on this stage [the powerstage], we went so fast in the morning but not so fast again now. The first one of the loop was fine. It’s like that.
Neuville had backed off somewhat after his Saturday error, electing to secure points both for his own title aspirations and his team. But with Tänak backing off at the very end, Neuville was able to recover one point on Sunday, courtesy of fourth in the powerstage, after losing five on Saturday
Hands up if you're ready to be a world champion... Thierry Neuville will have travel to Japan to land his lifetime ambition
“We were in the rhythm on Friday but after that a small mistake happened,” said Neuville. “We would have wanted to bring home the title this weekend but not at any price. After the mistake were understood it would not be for this weekend. But Japan is coming and looking forward to it.
“Sorry for the mistake – but even world champions make mistakes.”
Due to Ogier’s retirement, Hyundai now score a 1-3 result in the Saturday points. But Toyota’s Sunday efforts were still sufficient to reduce the gap in the manufacturers’ championship race from 17 to 15.
After his benching in Chile, Takamoto Katsuta came to the rescue for Toyota on the final day in Central Europe: he was both fastest on Sunday and on the powerstage, clinching a maximum 12 points in addition to the 10 points for his Saturday efforts. Evans complimented Katsuta’s efforts by finishing second in the Sunday standings and third on the powerstage.
“Huge thanks to the team,” said Katsuta. “It was such a tough moment I had but I had massive support from the team.”
A Hyundai driver is now guaranteed to win the drivers’ championship: Neuville heads to the season finale 25 points ahead of Tänak, while Evans has moved up to third in the standings but 40 points behind Neuville, ruling him out of the chase for the title.
Late attrition promoted Grégoire Munster to fifth place overall as the lead M-Sport car, albeit 2m20.9s adrift of fourth-placed Katsuta. His progress up the leaderboard had been aided by Sami Pajari crashing out of the morning’s first stage.
Adrien Fourmaux had returned in the second Ford Puma on Sunday and initially looked to be fighting Katsuta for top honors on Sunday; in the end he could only muster fifth-fastest time on the powerstage so settled for third in the Sunday order.
Evans gave Toyota something to cheer on another dismal Sunday for the defending world champions
A nightmare rally for Andreas Mikkelsen came with a small consolation of second-fastest time on the powerstage, making him the quickest of the Hyundais.
Mikkelsen had crashed out on Friday and on Sunday’s first stage had to stop to change a puncture, then became stranded at the in-control of SS16 when his hybrid system failed to display a status light. Once the light problem was solved he then lost hybrid power on the penultimate test.
Nikolay Gryazin wrapped up WRC2 victory by 17.3s over Oliver Solberg, having led since stage four on Friday morning.
“I had a mindset to be calm, just drive and make the car do the job, not me,” said Gryazin. “I was more like a spectator enjoying the process.”
Solberg had already completed all seven point-scoring rounds in his drivers’ championship bid so was only registered for the teams’ championship on CER; he now must wait to see if Sami Pajari goes to Japan and finishes in the top two places to know if he will become champion.
Filip Mares scored a first WRC2 podium finish on his home round of the championship, the Czech driver finishing two minutes adrift of Gryazin.
Citroën’s contender for the drivers’ championship Yohan Rossel needed to win to overhaul Solberg’s points tally: instead, he finished well outside the top 10, a broken wheel on Thursday evening and then another accident on Saturday morning left him 15 minutes off the lead.
