\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ott T\u00e4nak extended his Rally Japan lead on Saturday, but all eyes were on team-mate Thierry Neuville as he charged up the leaderboard to put himself within touching distance of the 2024 FIA World Rally Championship crown.<\/strong><\/p>\n Neuville, often referred to as the WRC\u2019s \u201cnearly-man,\u201d is finally within reach of shaking off that label and claiming his first-ever WRC drivers\u2019 title \u2013 a triumph that would also be the first for a Belgian driver in WRC. After a remarkable recovery from 15th to seventh overall in just seven stages on this penultimate day, Neuville and co-driver Martijn Wydaeghe provisionally banked four crucial points.<\/p>\n Following a turbocharger issue that heavily disrupted his Friday, Neuville\u2019s stunning comeback has left him needing just two more points from Super Sunday to seal the deal. With up to 12 points available, the 36-year-old is within striking distance of breaking his five-time runner-up streak and cementing his place as world champion.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to be satisfied with our performance today and being able to get back to P7, which didn\u2019t seem very realistic this morning,\u201d Neuville said. \u201cObviously tomorrow could be a big day, so we\u2019ll cross our fingers and try to have a good sleep.<\/p>\n \u201cI have had enough setbacks during my career,\u201d he continued, \u201cso I have learned to stay calm and just deal with it. The best thing you can do in that situation is fight back, and I think we have done that in the proper way today.\u201d<\/p>\n While T\u00e4nak\u2019s aspirations for a second drivers\u2019 title now look slim, he is carrying Hyundai\u2019s hopes for the manufacturers\u2019 championship.<\/p>\n The Estonian began Saturday with a 20.9sec lead over Toyota\u2019s Elfyn Evans, but that margin had decreased to 15.3sec after the morning\u2019s loop. However, a strong afternoon performance on Aichi\u2019s asphalt roads allowed T\u00e4nak to re-extend his lead to 38.0sec with five stages remaining.<\/p>\n As things stand, Hyundai heads Toyota by 11 points in the manufacturers\u2019 standings, with everything still to play for as the season nears its conclusion.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been tough but, especially in the second loop, we have been stronger than Elfyn,\u201d T\u00e4nak said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been on it so far and we will continue to be on it. [The manufacturers\u2019 championship] is our big target and we want to achieve it.\u201d<\/p>\n Like Neuville, eight-time champion S\u00e9bastien Ogier was also making moves. A two-minute wheel change on Friday had put the Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 HYBRID driver on the back foot, but he bounced back with a brace of stage wins and three second-fastest times today, climbing from fifth to third.<\/p>\n Ogier passed Toyota GAZOO Racing team-mate Takamoto Katsuta, who spun on SS12, as well as Adrien Fourmaux, to trail team-mate Evans by 1min 32.9sec overnight.<\/p>\n After overtaking Katsuta following the Japanese driver\u2019s mistake, Fourmaux was under constant pressure from the local hero and brought his M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID to the overnight halt just 6.1sec ahead.<\/p>\n Also showing impressive pace was Puma youngster Gr\u00e9goire Munster, who described the day as his \u201cbest-ever\u201d on Tarmac after clocking a third-fastest time on SS10. Neuville, meanwhile, was more than four minutes behind.<\/p>\n Nikolay Gryazin held eighth overall and extended his WRC2 lead to 1min 25.3sec over Sami Pajari. Pajari, driving a Toyota GR Yaris Rally2, is poised to clinch both the WRC2 and WRC2 Challenger titles on Sunday, while Hiroki Arai completed the top 10.<\/p>\n The post WRC: Neuville on the cusp of world glory in Japan<\/a> first appeared on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n The post WRC: Neuville on the cusp of world glory in Japan<\/a> appeared first on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 Ott T\u00e4nak extended his Rally Japan lead on Saturday, but all eyes were on team-mate Thierry Neuville as he charged up the leaderboard to put himself within touching distance of the 2024 FIA World Rally Championship crown. Neuville, often referred to as the WRC\u2019s \u201cnearly-man,\u201d is finally within reach of shaking off that label […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}