The fight for this year's FIA World Rally Championship is set to go down to the wire after Ott Tänak claimed a dramatic victory at Central European Rally on Sunday.
In yet another twist to what has been a thrilling 2024 season, Tänak took the win by 7.0sec after Sébastien Ogier crashed his Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 HYBRID on a left-hand corner in the penultimate stage. Ogier had been trailing the Estonian by just 1.5sec at the time of his incident.
Tänak's triumph, his second of the year, has set up a final-round showdown with Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID team-mate Thierry Neuville at next month's FORUM8 Rally Japan.
Neuville, who had been on course to secure his maiden drivers' title before a costly spin on Saturday morning, saw his championship lead cut from 29 to 25 points. He ended the rally in third place, 25.8sec behind GR Yaris pilot Elfyn Evans.
Despite Ogier's misfortune, strong Super Sunday performances from Toyota men Evans and Takamoto Katsuta helped trim Hyundai's advantage in the manufacturers' championship to 15 points. Katsuta was the fastest driver on the final day, including the Wolf Power Stage, ensuring a tense finale in Japan where, for the first time since 2021, both the drivers' and manufacturers' titles will be decided at the final round.
Neuville, Ogier, and Tänak all took turns at leading the rally, which kicked off in Prague on Thursday and featured challenging asphalt stages spread across the Czech Republic, Austria, and Germany. Tänak struggled with his car's set-up on Friday morning and initially languished in fifth place, but his pace improved as the event progressed, culminating in his 21st career victory.
"Let's see for the championship," said the 2019 WRC champion Tänak. "Obviously, with what happened to Séb... it is always difficult to fight a friend and then something like this happens, so it is difficult to find feelings. Everything changed, especially in the manufacturers' championship. We took care to have a clean [final] stage and bring the points home."
Katsuta's strong Sunday run, combined with Ogier's exit, saw him finish fourth overall, and 41.2sec behind Neuville - a solid finish for the Japanese runner before his home event next month.
Across the service park, Grégoire Munster climbed to fifth in his M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID, equalling his career-best result after Sami Pajari rolled his GR Yaris on SS15.
Sixth overall went to WRC2 winner Nikolay Gryazin, who finished 26.1sec ahead of Oliver Solberg. Although Solberg wasn't scoring points this week, he remains in contention for the WRC2 title, which will also be decided in Japan.
Filip Mareš, Miko Marczyk, and Kajetan Kajetanowicz rounded out the top 10 after four days of competition and more than 300km of timed stages.
PROVISIONAL FINAL CLASSIFICATION, CENTRAL EUROPEAN RALLY
1 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) 2h37m34.6s
2 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +7.0s
3 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +39.8s
4 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +1m21.0s
5 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) +3m41.9s
6 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Citroën C3 Rally2) +9m17.6s
7 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +9m34.1s
8 Filip Mareš/Radovan Bucha (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +11m41.5s
9 Miko Marczyk/Szymon Gospodarczyk (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +12m10.6s
10 Kajetan Kajetanowicz/Maciej Szczepaniak (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +12m20.3s ...
(Results as of 17:00 on Sunday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
2024 FIA World Rally Championship for drivers after round 12:
1 Thierry Neuville 225 points
2 Ott Tänak 200
3 Elfyn Evans 185
4 Sébastien Ogier 166
5 Adrien Fourmaux 146
6 Kalle Rovanperä 114
7 Takamoto Katsuta 102
8 Dani Sordo 44
9 Sami Pajari 41
10 Gregoire Munster 37 ...
2024 FIA World Rally Championship for manufacturers after round 12:
1 Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team 526 points
2 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team 511
3 M-Sport Ford World Rally Team 267
What's next?
The season will conclude on home roads for TGR at Rally Japan on November 21-24. The event, which returned to the WRC calendar in 2022, is held on demanding asphalt roads in the mountains of the Aichi and Gifu prefectures, around the service park in Toyota City near Nagoya.
