Ogier takes WRC Central European Rally lead after Neuville nightmare

Ogier takes WRC Central European Rally lead after Neuville nightmare

20th October 2024 0 By Kamron Kent

Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier regained the rally lead of the World Rally Championship’s Central European Rally as Hyundai’s championship leader Thierry Neuville endured a nightmarish day. 

Feature image credit: Jaanus Ree / Red Bull Content Pool

It was another day of six stages, across a total of 123.46km of competitive terrain, with one stage that crossed the border between Austria and Germany, Beyond Borders. 

However, the drama was found in front of Neuville as the championship leader spun out of the rally lead. Not helped by the greasy conditions on the tarmac, Neuville spun at a left-hand corner and later got his Hyundai stuck.

The championship leader was stuck temporarily before he got going again but cost him 30 seconds in the process, dropping to fourth overall by the end of the morning loop. 

Neuville wasn’t the only driver to suffer in the conditions as Hyundai’s Andreas Mikkelsen, M-Sport Ford’s Adrien Fourmaux and Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta slipped in the conditions.

Fourmaux was forced to retire later on due to damage. 

How the third day ended…

Ogier topped the timing boards with an overall time of two hours, 10 minutes and 12.7 seconds. Tanak found himself in rally-win contention as he continued to chase down his title-chasing teammate, Neuville. 

The Toyota Welshman, Eflyn Evans completed the day in third to give the Japanese manufacturer a 1-3 finish to pencil in the Saturday point scores ahead of Super Sunday. 

Neuville, despite leading the rally at the start of the day, fell down the order and found himself outside the top three in a weekend where he needed to outscore Tanak by two points to win the title. 

Japan’s Takamoto Katsuta completed day three in fifth to round out the top five. He was accompanied by fellow Toyota Rally1 driver Sami Pajari and M-Sport’s Gregoire Munster who finished the day in sixth and seventh. 

Jourdan Serderidis completed the running Rally1 drivers in his Rally1 Puma, down in 24th overall amongst the WRC3 contenders. 

This meant Nikolay Gryazin, Oliver Solberg and Filip Mares rounded out the top 10 in eighth, ninth and 10th.

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Hi, I'm Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion. I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I've loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.

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About the author

Hi, I'm Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion. I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I've loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.

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