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 Hyundai team-mate Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe the championship.

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.

The drama also means Toyota’s Elfyn Evans now leads the rally by 1m36.9s from team-mate and eight-time world champion Sebastian Ogier with M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux in third.