NEUVILLE COMES OUT ON TOP IN MONTE CARLO THRILLER
Hyundai man might not have grabbed the pre-season headlines, but he shone
All winter Thierry Neuville had waited. And waited. Since Rally Spain last October, the Belgian had been forced into the shadows by an incoming World Rally champion. So profound has been the chatter about Ott Tanak joining Hyundai, it felt like the man who made Hyundai his own had been lost.
On the harbourside in Monaco last Sunday afternoon he was, most definitely, found.
Neuville’s maiden Monte Carlo
Rally win couldn’t have contrasted more comprehensively with Tanak’s result. By the time Thierry cracked the champagne open, the Estonian was home reflecting on the biggest and fastest crash of his life.
Once more, the World Rally Championship held its breath when the #8 Hyundai speared off the road at high speed on Friday’s second stage. The terrifying accident, which lasted an agonising 14 seconds and ended with a 30-metre drop off a cliff, destroyed the i20 – but mercifully and quite brilliantly kept the crew safe.
Last week was the perfect tonic for those troubled by a winter of relative discontent for the WRC. The 2019 season finished a round early courtesy of the New South Wales bushfires, Chile’s 2020 round was lost to political unrest and, of course, Citroen walked away. But last week’s Monte Carlo Rally offered the best possible start to a new decade in the WRC.
A week out from the annual trip to the south of France and the roads threading the peaks inland from the Principality were pretty much bone dry. It was looking like a road race. Then, on the Friday before the recce, the day of Elfyn Evans’ pre-event test north of Gap, things started to change.
In the words of the Welshman, “it pissed down”. And when day turned to night, it snowed. And when it snowed, it delivered that vital ingredient for a classic Monte: the curveball of unpredictability.
Not to mention opportunity.
Thursday night provided an immediate conundrum. Standing in the sunshine waiting for the cars to cross the start ramp alongside Formula 1’s most famous start-finish straight, Boulevard Albert 1st was a world away from the first two stages that sat between Digne and Gap.
The opening stage might have been new to everybody, but it was dry. The second test, the event’s longest at 16 miles, was the well-trodden route from Bayons to Breziers. Familiarity in this area is famous for breeding contempt and SS2 was that horrible mix of snow, ice and asphalt.
Sebastiens Ogier and Loeb, Neuville and Tanak all went for a mix of soft and supersoft racer tyres. Evans and M-sport followed suit and then lobbed a couple of studded winters in the boot for stage two.
Spying an opportunity to lay down a marker and make a point, new Toyota recruit Ogier hurled his Yaris WRC through the opener 1.8s faster than his nearest rival Tanak, with Evans just a tenth further back. Consistency worked for those in new colours. But what about the next one?
Neuville took aim at a 6.4s stage-one deficit and blew it out of the water with a SS2 drive that was simply breathtaking. He tore through the dry sections, then tippy-toe danced the i20 across the ice, heart in mouth, everything on the limit. Back to the dry and it was hammer down home. The result? A simply mind-boggling time.
One of the finest single stage performances in the modern history of the WRC, he’d whopped the world’s best to the tune of 25.5 seconds.
When the cars reached service in Gap close to midnight, Evans smiled thinly, then blew his cheeks out. “Fair play,” he said. “That’s some time…”
After the on-camera pleasantries about there being a long way to go, Neuville turned to Motorsport News and did his best to stifle the grin.
He’d rolled the dice, taken a punt and got away with it. More than that, he’d had an awful lot of fun.
“It just felt right,” he said. “I was able to read very well the road and the grip and I used that to optimise the braking. When you get away with a couple of corners the confidence can come, but then suddenly… bang, it can go so easily as well. You need to keep your confidence, but never try to take too much risk. It’s sure this one can bite much more quickly. This is why the Monte’s not a normal Tarmac rally. You know what it’s like, we’re all on the same tenth [of a second].”
Now was the time to test all those preevent theories that there’s no need to panic when you lose a chunk of time. It can, we were told time and again, all be won back on the very next stage.
It would be harsh to talk of Neuville going from hero to anything like zero, but dropping 20s on Friday’s opener – his cause not helped by a big icy slide and stall – was far from ideal. It proved the point and opened a door.
Evans was fastest through it. Despite multi-seasonal conditions at his preevent test, Evans had found a set-up he was happy with on his first WRC outing in the Yaris and he dominated the morning with fastest time on all three tests. Predictably, the new leader wasn’t letting it go to his head at lunchtime.
“It’s not bad,” was as effusive as he was willing to get.
Ogier, for his part, was rattled. It’d been a long time since a team-mate had the better of him in his own backyard. Interviews were dispatched with brevity and a smile the six-time champ has perfected to convey the message that this would be a good time for the interviewer to move on. If Evans ruled the morning, Ogier had the afternoon, or two-thirds of it. Both Toyotas were forced to give best to Neuville on the final stage of the working week.
The third-placed Hyundai driver admitted he was disappointed with his day, but he remained just 6.4s
down on the lead. And the leader was Ogier who moved to the top of the table, edging Evans by 1.2s. “I didn’t have much confidence this morning especially in the bumpy sections,” said Ogier. “But when you can see your team-mate is beating you then you know there is room for improvement. There’s room to go
faster. We did some small changes at miday service and the car was better in the afternoon.” “He’s turned the screw a little bit today,” admitted Evans. “I just wanted to keep to my rhythm, I didn’t want to go crazy. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.” Saturday brought ice. And snow. Not fresh snow. But enough of the white stuff to send everybody to studded tyres. Neuville took the opener, but once again it was Evans who was the talk of the service park for the second lunchtime in succession. His time through La Breole-selonnet was another landmark Monte moment. Ogier got to within 7.6s of the Brit, but Neuville was 13.8s down. “I was surprised at my time on Thursday night,” said Neuville. “And this one’s a surprise as well. He’s been more brave in there.”
Brave and full of confidence. No more of that “not so bad” nonsense this time. “Yeah, it was good,” laughed Evans. “The first stage, I wasn’t completely satisfied, I drove a little bit carefully in just a couple of places. I still drove OK, it wasn’t bad by any means. On the second one, I found a really good rhythm or whatever you want to call it and it worked out OK.”
If the pace across the snow was impressive, the car control demonstrated as the studs skated across the top of the dry asphalt between the white bits was outrageous. Kris Meeke’s co-driver Seb Marshall recalled that stage from last season. “There was one long sixth-gear left hander where the car went full sideways,” said the Englishman. “I thought, ‘Sliding like this… in sixth gear?’ Keep your head down and keep reading.”
That stage was an absolute demonstration of Evans’ comfort in the car. It also made a total mockery of those who’d ever dared doubt his ability to challenge – especially in changeable conditions on asphalt.
“You’re always a little bit wary driving on the studs [on dry Tarmac], but the aero on this car is really good and that actually gives quite a lot of grip even on the stud in the high speed,” said Evans. “It’s just about trusting in that.”
His trust was not just complete, but it also paved the way back to P1. After Saturday’s penultimate test, Evans and Ogier were tied at the top. Not even a visit to a ditch on the final Saturday stage could keep Evans off the lead.
He would start the final day 6.4s up on Neuville and 4.9s ahead of Ogier.
“We were a bit lucky in that last one,” he said. “I was too quick on the throttle and we went straight to the ditch. But you need a bit of luck, don’t you?”
But would that luck last the night? Or would Toyota team principal Tommi Makinen have a word? How could he, with Neuville so close?
The Finn actually looked offended by the question. He was, he assured us, enjoying this battle as much as anybody. “I don’t think,” he said, “anything will stop those two going flat out tomorrow.” And fortunately for us, Makinen wasn’t about to try.
So, to Monaco and on to the Alpes Maritimes. And Turini.
Ogier reckoned the weather wasn’t done yet. “Maybe there’s some more coming,” he said, referring to the rumour of rain low down and snow up top. The clouds passed, delivered nothing. The only question now was how warm would it get and how long would the supersoft rubber last over Sunday’s final four stages?
The top three went with three softs and three supersofts. Neuville’s mind was changed by his ice-noting teammate Dani Sordo, who persuaded him out of four supersofts, which would have been faster on the first loop, but cooked by the time it came to the powerstage.
“He asked me what I thought and I told him,” said Sordo. “He said, ‘OK, I trust you’.”
Neuville was comfortably the busiest driver at Sunday morning’s tyre zone. Lying beneath his i20 he wrestled with clicks and rideheight adjustors to lower the car for what would be a faster, drier and racier run than anybody expected.
Twelve months ago, Neuville was first or second fastest on the first three stages of the day, but then lost out on the powerstage. What was his intention this time around?
“We’ll cut and paste the first three from last year, then go faster on the last one,” he explained.
That wasn’t at all the way it worked. In the end, he delivered his very own super Sunday, produced a clean sweep of all four and romped home to his maiden Monte win.
Not even a dinked wheel rim was enough to stop him. Neuville ended the event as he’d started it. In peerless and very, very powerful form.
“I felt a lot of confidence in the car,” he said. “When we started to catch back some time yesterday, I thought this could be possible. I’ve chased this result for so long. We came close last year, but this time we delivered. What a fantastic way to start the season.”
One man who couldn’t contain his emotions was team principal Adamo. The Italian had grown up pretending to go to sleep at night while sneaking a radio into his bedroom to listen to Radio Monte Carlo describe, among others, Henri Toivonen’s 1986 win on this very same event.
“For me this one is really special,” said Adamo. “I had my dad down here with me yesterday. We used to come to this rally to spectate together, this is where my passion began.”
Predictably, there was much jumping on tables and hugging as Neuville crossed the line to register Hyundai’s maiden success on the world’s most famous – and an Italian’s favourite – rally.
For Toyota there was the immediate disappointment of 1-2 turning 2-3. But the squad’s sporting director
Kaj Lindstrom was pragmatic. “Of course it stings a little bit,” he said. “But having three cars in the top five here? We have to be happy with that.”
Evans was still chewing on that particular memo. “I’ll go home tomorrow and think about it,” he said. “Trouble is, when you lead a rally, it raises your expectation. We could have won this. We could have won the Monte.
“Honestly, I knew it wasn’t really working today. The feeling wasn’t there. I was having to force it and then we were overdriving.”
The voice trailed away and the remainder of a half-eaten Big Mac far more appealing than another question. Fair enough. Next time.
Ogier’s story was about the same, save for finding just enough grip to ease his way past Evans. The frustration at relinquishing a top step he’s owned since 2014 was writ large. But he was quick to counter.
“Remember what happened last time I finished second?” he asked, referring to his 2013 campaign.
“It was my best season ever.”
Fighting talk. But did you expect anything less?