The title rivals were locked in a titanic scrap across the day’s eight stages, which saw the lead change hands and the margin between the pair never exceeding five seconds, having started Saturday tied on overall times.
A maximum attack approach, assisted by a beneficial tyre call in unpredictable weather, ultimately resulted in Hyundai driver Neuville ending the day with a 4.9s lead from Evans. The pair picked up 18 and 15 provisional championship points respectively, which can be collected if they finish the rally on Sunday.
Eight-time world champion and part-time Toyota driver Sebastien Ogier kept himself in the victory battle, 11.6s adrift in third, scooping up 13 points. Hyundai’s Ott Tanak held fourth [+1m15.5s] to claim 10 points ahead of M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux [+1m35.4s], who snared a provisional eight points.
Threatening skies again put the focus on tyres for Saturday’s afternoon loop as Toyota clearly expected rain, selecting four soft and two wets as the package for its three GR Yaris entries.
Hyundai and M-Sport were more conservative, opting to take hard-, soft- and wet-compound rubber in case the rain didn’t arrive.
Light rain greeted the crews ahead of Stage 13 [Smerovisce-Grdanjci -15.72 km] before the shower became increasingly heavier, which played into Toyota’s hands.
Evans took advantage of the changeable weather and a stage win duly followed as he re-took the overall lead from Neuville in the process by a margin of two seconds. Evans was however unsure if the tyre call would pay off for the remainder of the loop.
Thierry Neuville, Martijn Wydaeghe, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1
Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images
Neuville dropped 6.7s to stage winner Evans, who took the stage by a second from team-mate Ogier.
“I pushed very hard and tried to carry on, I knew we were losing time, but we limited the time loss. It’ll be difficult [to bring it back],” said Neuville.
M-Sport’s Fourmaux also bore the brunt of a wrong tyre decision as the Frenchman ceded 15.5s to the lead group.
“I’m not happy. I don’t understand how we can be so bad. We have a lot of data and yet we cannot make a good tyre choice. It’s so disappointing,” said Fourmaux.
Tanak also endured tyre woes, revealing that he had a moment due to the lack of grip on the stage.
However, the tide turned in favour of Hyundai and M-Sport after stage 14 [Stojdraga-Gornja Vas 20.77km]. The early…
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