Thierry Neuville has achieved an impressive victory in the RACC Rally after taking the lead in SS5 and setting the pace for the rest of the event. The Hyundai driver has proven to be one step ahead of his rivals and closed the rally 24.1 seconds ahead of Elfyn Evans. All in all, the Welsh driver can be satisfied with his performance at the Spanish event after cut seven points to Sébastien Ogier and postpone the resolution of the title until the final round of the WRC, the Monza Rally. In this aspect, Evans has found in Dani Sordo the perfect ally after climbing the Spanish rider to the third step of the podium.
The last stage of the RACC Rally began with some tranquility for Thierry Neuville, as the Belgian knew perfectly well that the job was done. In fact, Dani Sordo was the Hyundai driver who came out with the knife between his teeth, to the point of achieving scratch on the SS14. A result that was worth the Cantabrian to overcome Sébastien Ogier and take third place in the general classification. Knowing the importance of this result in the fight for the constructors’ title, Sordo repeated scratch in SS15 to extend his advantage over the WRC leader to 1.6 seconds with rain as a traveling companion.
They say there are no two without three and Dani Sordo made this saying good by setting the best time in SS16 again, penultimate leg of the rally. The Spaniard thus achieved an income of 2.3 seconds over Sébastien Ogier for the Power Stage, although the Cantabrian in turn managed to reach the decisive special with a competitive pace much higher than its rivals. And that was noticeable from the first meters of the final section, where the Cantabrian had one more march. In fact, Sordo scored the scratch on the Power Stage, added the five extra points and closed on Sunday with full fast times.
Thierry Neuville finished second on the Power Stage to add four points to the 25 achieved for his triumphor, not without intrigue since minutes before the stage his Hyundai refused to start. For his part, Elfyn Evans took third place at the wheel of the Toyota, deducting another additional point from Sébastien Ogier, since the Frenchman was fourth. With his second place in the rally and these extra points, Evans manages to cut his deficit with the leader by seven points and is placed at 17 points after the fourth place obtained by Ogier in the RACC Rally, since the Frenchman has been unable to contain the thrust of Dani Sordo.
Behind the quartet formed by Thierry Neuville, Elfyn Evans, Dani Sordo and Sébastien Ogier, Kalle Rovanperä finished., both on the rally and on the Power Stage. The Finn has thus left behind his difficult Rally Finland on a surface that is not his favorite with a good performance that has earned him to widely overcome the ‘second group’ of the rally. A second unit in which Gus Greensmith was sixth after beating Oliver Solberg and Nil SolansAlthough the debut of the Catalan driver at the controls of a World Rally Car has been really brilliant.
Fruit of his ninth place, Eric Camilli has also scored the victory in the WRC2 category, with the addition of being the fastest RACC Rally driver at the wheel of a ‘Rally2’ vehicle. The French rider has made the most of his Citroën C3 Rally2 to overtake Teemu Suninen by 20.2 seconds. Czech Erik has almost closed the podium in the silver category. Emil Lindholm has prevailed in WRC3 after beating Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Josh McErlean, since Pepe López has retired with an engine problem. Finally, Sami Pajari has achieved victory in the Junior WRC and is the last champion of the category.