WRC Japan: Tanak crash hands Neuville the WRC title

Ott Tanak has dramatically crashed out of the lead of Rally Japan which has handed Thierry Neuville the World Rally Championship and swung the manufacturers title battle towards Toyota.

Tanak started Sunday with a 38 second rally lead over Toyota’s Elfyn Evans which he needed to maintain to keep his WRC title hopes alive.

However, Sunday morning’s opening stage (Nukata, 20.23km) proved decisive in the outcome of the WRC drivers’ championship.

Tanak was caught out by dirt on the road and understeered wide off the road at speed. It resulted in a heavy impact for his i20 N which suffered terminal damage.

Tanak and co-driver Martin Jarveoja escaped the incident unscathed, but the retirement handed Hyunai team-mate Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe the championship.

“By surprise I got caught by some dirt and understeered and we went off the road,” said a dejected Tanak.

When asked for his feelings about the drivers’ and manufacturers’ title battle, he added “Nothing good.”

Neuville had started the day needing to score two points from Sunday’s offering of 12 points to claim the title.

But Tanak’s crash means he can no longer be caught even if he fails to finish the rally, meaning the Belgian is now the 2024 world rally champion, clinching his maiden WRC title in dramatic fashion, having been a runner-up on five occasions (2013,2016-2019). 

Neuville has led the championship ever since winning the opening round in Monte Carlo in January but his title hopes took a knock this weekend. The Belgian only needed to score six points but a turbo failure on Friday left him outside of the position in 15th. 

Neuville delivered a stunning fightback on Saturday to claim seventh and four valuable points given rival Tanak was leading the rally comfortably before the Estonian made a mistake in stage 17.     

“Honestly it has come as a surprise. I don’t know what to say at the moment but I think we  deserve it,” said an overwhelmed Neuville.   

“It has been a very challenging year, very tough. Obviously we had much more pressure than we needed, especially for this last event. We knew there was risk and we managed it. We are happy now, we are a bit more relaxed now so we can push harder for the manufacturers’ title because we want to go home with all the trophies.”

The accident has swung the battle for the manufacturers’ crown in Toyota’s direction with Tanak now surrendering his first place after Saturday’s classification, and will no longer be able to fight for Sunday points.

Moments later, Heikki Kovalainen, sitting fourth in the WRC2 class, got caught out of the same corner as Tanak and rolled his Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 with the car coming to rest on top of Tanak’s i20.   

The manufacturers’ battle is now on a knife edge. Hyundai held an 11-point lead over Toyota at the start of Sunday but Tanak’s dramatic crash from the lead in stage 17 surrendered the points for finishing first on Saturday.

Tanak’s demise not only handed Hyundai team-mate Neuville the driver’s world title but also eclipsed Hyundai’s lead in the manufacturers’ battle.

Toyota’s Evans moved into a 1m31.2s rally lead over team-mate Sebastien Ogier as the pair now have been handed the top two positions in the Saturday rankings as those points are only recorded if competitors reach the rally finish.

M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux moved into the final podium spot [+1m50.8s] ahead of Takamoto Katsuta [+2m03.4s], M-Sport’s Gregoire Munster [+3m03.1s] and Neuville [6m55.6s].

The pressure mounted on the remaining Hyundais driven by Neuville and Andreas Mikkelsen to score crucial Super Sunday points.

Although with the pressure of trying to seal a maiden world title now released, Neuville set a blistering pace to move to the top of the Super Sunday standings after three of the day’s five stages.

Neuville was third fastest on stage 17 where Tanak crashed before going on to win the 13.98km pass through Lake Mikawako. The Belgian shared the fastest time with Ogier in stage 19 but it was enough to hold the lead in the Super Sunday standings by 1.3s from team-mate Mikkelsen.

Toyota’s Ogier was third [+10.1s] in the Sunday rankings with Evans fourth [19.8s] in the standings as Toyota and Hyundai were level on points. 

Nikolay Gryazin continued to lead the WRC2 class in eight overall, while Sami Pajari was on course to seal the WRC2 title in second with two stages remaining.