World Rally Championship title favourite Thierry Neuville went off the road in stage 11 twice to hand Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier the lead at the Central European Rally.
The Hyundai driver’s lead came under pressure on Saturday morning from team-mate Ott Tanak before Neuville relieved the pressure.
However, two mistakes in the final stage of the loop dropped the championship leader to fourth, 33.6s behind new rally leader Ogier.
Tanak, whom Neuville needs to outscore by two points to seal the world title this weekend, moved to second, 4.6s adrift, with Toyota’s Elfyn Evans fourth [+8.3s]. Takamoto Katsuta [+1m02.4s], Sami Pahari [+1m49.9s] and Gregoire Munster [+2m51.0s] rounded out the top seven.
M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux retired from the day’s action after stage 10.
Challenging wet and foggy conditions welcomed the crews for Saturday’s first stage in Germany (Grant und Wald, 20.0km), which triggered plenty of drama.
Andreas Mikkelsen was the first to tackle the conditions after rejoining the rally having crashed out on stage five yesterday. The Hyundai driver suffered a slow speed spin on his way through the test he described as “very tricky”.
Andreas Mikkelsen, Torstein Eriksen, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
M-Sport’s Fourmaux, who felt there was something wrong with his car on Friday, was fortunate to continue after a wild moment when he ran wide onto a large grass run-off that resulted in his Puma sliding into trees.
Luckily, he was able to continue, reporting that an intermittent front differential issue was to blame for the off.
“We have a huge issue on the front differential that we realised on the road section, I have no drive on the front, it is like driving a rear wheel drive all the time. As soon as there is dirt [on the road] it is hard to get it to go straight. It is undrivable,” said Fourmaux, who now had the use of his hybrid unit following yesterday’s failure.
WRC2 driver Oliver Solberg suffered a similar moment at the same corner moments later but was able to avoid running into the trees.
The tricky conditions were however tamed by Tanak, who produced a blistering effort to win the stage by 3.9s from Ogier to move ahead of the Toyota driver into second overall.
“The car feels better today than yesterday but it is extremely demanding conditions out there,” said Tanak.
Rally leader Neuville opted for a steady…
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