Two rally leaders crash in dramatic final day, leaving Neuville and Hyundai to snatch maiden victories at Rallye Deutschland
At the end of an astonishing final day of Rallye Deutschland that has seen two rally leaders crash, Thierry Neuville and Nicolas Gilsoul have claimed their first-ever WRC victory and the first win for the Hyundai i20 WRC. Remarkably, the Belgians were lucky to even start the event having rolled six times at shakedown which resulted in the team working 19 hours to fix the car for Friday’s start. To add to Hyundai’s celebrations, team-mates Dani Sordo and Marc Marti made it an impressive one-two for the Korean manufacturer in its debut year in the FIA World Rally Championship with the car. Andreas Mikkelsen and Ola Floene finished third, the only Volkswagen crew to make it to the finish of the rally.In the FIA World Rally Championship, Volkswagen crews continue to dominate, despite Sébastien Ogier and Jari-Matti Latvala retiring. The pair remain first and second with Mikkelsen third and it is now assured that a Volkswagen driver will clinch the Drivers’ title. In the Manufacturers’ Championship, Volkswagen’s fight for a second consecutive title continues, the German marque now 167 points ahead of the Citroën Total Abu Dhabi World Rally Team with four rounds remaining.Sunday’s route covered two loops of two stages over 74.60 competitive kilometres and looked set to see Jari-Matti Latvala claim his first asphalt rally win, which would also have put him firmly back in contention for the Championship title following the retirement of Ogier. However, the Finn went off in dramatic style in the opening stage, plunging through the vineyards and into instant retirement. Kris Meeke then looked set to become the first Briton to win a WRC event since 2002 until he too crashed out on the first corner of the following stage when a misjudged pace note resulted in him hitting a wall and taking a wheel off. Neuville then became the third rally leader of the day and, with a 37 second advantage over team-mate Sordo, was in a position to control the pace to the finish. Sordo, who won the event last year with Citroën, finished 40.7 seconds adrift and, with Hyundai claiming the victory it has ended Citroën’s 12-year reign of winning Rallye Deutschland and Volkswagen’s winning run of 12 events which began in Australia last year. Mikkelsen, in his first full Tarmac event in the Polo R WRC, finished a fine third despite a spin in the first stage. M-Sport team-mates Elfyn Evans and Mikko Hirvonen battled to the end, Evans taking fourth by just under seven seconds after possibly the best performance of his career which culminated in him winning the Power Stage. Mads Østberg claimed sixth in the sole remaining DS3 WRC and Martin Prokop finished further adrift in seventh.The FIA World Rally Championship contenders now head to the other side of the world for Rally Australia (11-14 September), the penultimate all-gravel round of the series.
