COLIN CLARK

“The title fight is a very long way from being over”

W

ell, well, well: Are we heading towards a three-way showdown for the World Rally Championship crown for the first time in too many years? If the current form of Ott Tanak and his Toyota is to continue, then absolutely, yes.

Three drivers, in three different marques, going at it hammer and tongs for the remaining four rounds of the season; why would you want to follow any other series? The WRC is at the top of a massively competitive wave right now and you’d be mad not to surf it all the way to the glorious beaches of Coffs Harbour in midNovember and the season’s hotly anticipated conclusion.

But maybe I’m living in a Sunday evening post-rally eutrophic haze that actually, come Monday morning’s cold, hard reality check, will remind me that, with a 23-point lead in the championship, this one is very much Thierry Neuville’s to lose. Wrong. And here’s why. The next three events will almost inevitably see Neuville start Friday morning first on the road and Ott Tanak third, with Sebastien Ogier sandwiched between them in second. What this season has shown is that Neuville is yet to master the art of road sweeping. He wasn’t at the races in Mexico and never seemed happy in Finland. I fully expect him to struggle in Turkey. Spain will be decided on day one and he’ll struggle there, and there’s every chance that GB will also penalise the first car on the road.

You also have to consider just how strong the engine in the Toyota looks. It played its homologation joker for Finland and introduced a new power unit that was designed to deliver more low-range torque and make the car more drivable. Well, boy has the team achieved that. In Tanak’s hands, the car looks unbeatable.

The big question mark over Tanak, however, will be reliability. Jari-matti Latvala’s last-day retirement showed us again that the car may be a bit of a rocket, but one that’s liable to self-destruct before reaching its target. But, make no mistake, Tanak can win every rally before now and the end of the year, and that might, just might see him snatch the crown.

So how about Ogier? Well he’ll very much be there on the Coffs Coast doing his damnedest to win title number six. Saturday morning on Panzerplatte and, with a forced stop to change a puncture, Ogier’s title chances seemed all-but over. But that seemed to spark a bit of the Ogier of old back to life; there was a devil-may-care attitude and a balls-out push through the remaining stages that was an object lesson in damage limitation. The powerstage win, his first in ages, answered a lot of the doubters who questioned Ogier’s appetite for the fight.

For Ogier to win though, he needs help. And he’s not getting it right now from his team-mates. Here’s one final thought: could a Northern Irishman currently sitting at home twiddling his thumbs play a part in this year’s title fight? Kris Meeke could be the super-sub who takes points from Tanak and Neuville. He could be the wingman that Ogier is sorely missing this year…