Thierry Neuville began his complicated return to the Rally Japan on Saturday morning to try to get closer to the positions qualifying for points in the World Rally Championship, while his rival for the title, Ott TanakI saw how Elfyne Evans closed the gap.
Neuvillefinally with a Hyundai i20N which was running at full capacity after the electrical problem on Friday, succeeded move up to 11th position while Tanak maintains his hopes of winning the championship by remaining rally leader.
Evans cut Tanak's lead to 16.3 seconds after stage 11, before the final test of the loop was canceled for safety reasons.
Adrien Fourmaux, from M-Sport-Fordthird, ahead of the Toyota duo, Sébastien Ogier And Takamoto Katsutawith Grégoire Munsterof M-Sportin sixth place.
Hyundai's overnight work to repair a turbo problem that injured Neuville paid off as the Belgian returned to action on Saturday behind the wheel of a fully powered i20 N.
Neuville's mission to climb from 15th position to the top 10 and points qualifying positions was made easier by orders from the Hyundai team. The team ordered Andreas Mikkelsenwho crashed in the fifth stage on Friday, made a late start in the tenth stage to improve Neuville's position.
The Belgian faces the new stage of Mount Kasagi (16.47 km) cautiously, but still managed to set the fifth fastest time, which allowed the Belgian to move up to 13th position, after WRC2 drivers Jan Solans and Josh McErlean suffered fatal damage to the during the stage.
“Finally the car is working and we can pick up speed. Obviously today is about getting back into the points and trying to maximize the day,” Neuville said.
Munster He set an impressive pace to record a benchmark time that looked set to give the M-Sport driver his first WRC stage victory. However, Evans He managed to beat the Luxembourger, since the Toyota driver eclipsed the time by three seconds.
The leader of the gathering, Tanakmatched Munster's time to highlight what has been one of Ford's best moments this season, but the former's effort saw his lead over Evans drop to 17.9 seconds.
In the fight for third positionFourmaux managed to increase his advantage from 0.1s to 5.2s over Toyota's Katsuta after a strong stage from the Frenchman.
Thierry Neuville, Martijn Wydaeghe, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1
Photo: McKlein / Motorsport Images
Katsuta responded to Forumaux's pace on stage 11 (Nenoue Kougen 11.60 km), as the fight for the podium took another turn. The local driver was 5.6 seconds faster than the M-Sport driver, who unlike his rival Toyota was running on hard tyres, to snatch third place by 0.4 seconds.
“Of course it would be nice to get on the podium, but that's not my goal this weekend, I'm just following the team strategy,” Katsuta said.
At the head of the gathering, Tanak thinks he was too cautious again losing 1.6 seconds to Evans, further reducing his advantage over the Toyota driver to 16.3 seconds.
“There's so much information out there that I'm very cautious, but it's hard to push the boundaries all the time even if you know there's nothing,” Tanak said.
His teammate and championship rival, Neuvilletook advantage of the fast and fluid nature of the stage to continue to progress in the ranking and finished just 22.5 seconds from 10th place – the last position which gives points -, now in the hands of WRC2 and former F1 driver, .
The battle for third place was more dramatic in the last stage of the loop (stage 12, Ena 22.79 km).
Katsuta was lucky to avoid a serious accident when he lost the rear of his GR Yaris. But he lost 10 seconds and went from third to fifth position, behind Fourmaux and Ogier.
Ogier had set the reference time in the stage to reduce the gap with Fourmaux, third, to 3.4 seconds, including 5.7 seconds for the trio of drivers fighting for the podium.
However, Step 12 was stopped then canceled before rally leader Tanak and rival Evans can take part in practice due to an unauthorized vehicle entering the closed road.
Fortunately, the appearance of this unauthorized vehicle was reported to the marshals before Evans could start the stage. Television cameras captured a vehicle stopped in the opposite direction approaching the start line, where Evans' Toyota GR Yaris waited behind a temporary barrier.
Rally organizers confirmed that local authorities were on site and dealing with the problem.
In WRC2, Nikolay Gryazin maintains his lead in seventh place in the general classification ahead of Sami Pajari, on the verge of winning the WRC2 title.
The loop of stages will be repeated this afternoon, followed by a second stint on the Toyota Stadium super special to conclude Saturday's action at the 2024 WRC Rally Japan.
