Thierry Neuville insists his first focus is on delivering a “consistent run” at this week’s Central European Rally as the Hyundai driver closes in on a maiden World Rally Championship crown.

Neuville heads into the WRC’s penultimate round, spread across the asphalt roads in the Czech Republic, Austria and Germany, with a 29-point lead over nearest rival and team-mate Ott Tanak.

The Belgian will secure a first WRC title if he can extend the margin beyond 30 points this weekend, with only one round of the season remaining in Japan next month.

The odds appear to be in Neuville’s favour who won the Central European Rally last year and will start this year’s edition with the advantage of opening the road as championship leader.

Last weekend Neuville aided his preparations for the rally by participating in the Herbst Rallye in Austria, where his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 was one of the course cars.

While the prospect of a career-defining world title is edging closer, Neuville says his main focus is to ensure he performs consistently this week.

“Last year we had a great victory at the very first Central European Rally. We know we usually perform well on tarmac and winning in Germany was super cool for the whole team,” said Neuville.

Thierry Neuville, Martijn Wydaeghe, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1

Photo by: Vincent Thuillier / Hyundai Motorsport

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“Despite difficult conditions, we performed well But because of the stage changes we need to do some video work, so we will be studying those as much as possible to get a good feel of the new areas.

“The main goal is to manage our championship so we can take as many points as possible. Of course, we would like to get that title in our pocket, but our first focus will be having a consistent run.”

Neuville’s Hyundai team will however be eager to issue a response to Toyota’s Rally Chile performance that reduced the deficit in the manufacturers’ title race to 17 points.

“We need to maintain our lead in all three championships, and a clean performance at Central European Rally is essential in eventually bringing them home,” said Hyundai team principal Cyril Abiteboul.

“Thierry won here last year, and we know how strong he is on the tarmac, so anything is possible across the weekend. As well as the push for the drivers’ and co-drivers’ titles, we also have the fight for the manufacturers’, and we have three strong crews fighting for that too.

“We want to leave CER having taken advantage of our road positions and made the most of the weekend – something we could not do in Chile.”

Six races to go: the calendar’s final quarter. The business end of the year. The last push. That bit of the year where all the races turn into an amalgamated blob of half-remembered overtakes at weird times of the day, before finally concluding in an Abu Dhabi encounter that will either be saturated in tedium, or offer a masterclass in how to put on a championship finale. And never the twain shall meet.

Thankfully, unlike 2024, the final run-in of flyaways is not a series of dead-rubber races; millions of pounds are not being expended for little material yield. This time there’s a championship battle on the cards, at least only notionally unless the gap between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris comes down to a tangible range in the final couple of races. There’s a lot left to play for, which means the usual winding-down period in development to focus on 2025 is a much more precarious situation to manage.

But it’s the constructors’ championship that pays the big bucks. Aside from who wins the title, there’s little more than honour in the other drivers’ placings; the difference between 14th and 15th in the standings will be inconsequential.

What is the difference between, say, ninth and 10th in the constructors’ title? That’s circa an extra $10 million, depending on the size of the prize pot, and can demonstrate the disparity between operating at the cost cap and falling short. Alternatively, perhaps the extra $10m pays for some new infrastructure, covers off a debt or allows for a little more fidelity with simulations. The possibilities are endless.

That’s why the constructors’ placings are valuable, but there’s also said to be a couple of extra payment columns that also reward recent success in the championship, with extra payments made to those who have finished in the top three in recent years. The flipside to a better championship position is reduced aerodynamic testing. Would a team rather have an extra $10m, or the extra 10% in wind tunnel testing time? If so, that determines whether a team wants to force the issue for a position change in the final few races of the season.

Still, there are plenty of key battles available in the championship, with varying levels of prestige. Here are the three main ones that remain hotly contested.

The battle for first and second

Contenders: McLaren, Red Bull, Ferrari

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

McLaren took the lead in the constructors’ championship after Oscar Piastri’s win in Azerbaijan, and Lando Norris’ win in Singapore opened a 41-point buffer that looks set to extend if Red Bull cannot resume its early-season form. During Red Bull’s mid-season regression, it seemed somewhat inevitable that McLaren would overtake it in the teams’ standings; given the performance disparity between the two, it will be an arduous task for Red Bull to reclaim it.

The eventuality that looks a smidgen more likely is that it will face a challenge from Ferrari over second, as just 34 points separate the two teams. Both Red Bull and Ferrari appear to have gotten over the respective issues that cost performance in the middle part of the season; the RB20’s ever-shifting balance created a disconnect between driver and car, while Ferrari’s floor developments instigated bouncing during the high-speed corners.

Red Bull retains a car performance advantage, but relying on Max Verstappen for the bulk of its points effectively means it goes into the race with one hand behind its back. Both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz can be expected to contribute to the Prancing Horse’s burgeoning tally, while Red Bull’s Sergio Perez seems to be nothing more than a presence in the lower reaches of the points. And, on current form, Red Bull might be spending more time looking in its rear-view mirror…

The battle for sixth

Contenders: RB, Haas

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Fourth and fifth are pretty much sewn up: Mercedes is 112 points shy of Ferrari in the constructors’ standings, and 243 clear of Aston Martin. Nothing short of capitulation will change the order here.

Despite its regression, Aston Martin’s grasp of fifth looks reasonably assured too; there’s a 52-point gap between it and the sixth-placed RB. For its part, RB is just three points ahead of Haas – and of the two, the American team outfit has the greater form behind it. Although a smaller team than RB by some magnitude, Haas under Ayao Komatsu’s leadership has become a far more diligent operation compared to its years under Gunther Steiner; its focus on getting the most bang for its buck has led to a much more felicitous season compared to 2023.

Nico Hulkenberg has been one of the stars of the midfield; the two sixth-place finishes at Silverstone and the Red Bull Ring helped the team make huge inroads into RB’s early advantage in the constructors’ title. While Kevin Magnussen has not been as prolific, the Dane has played a valuable support role to Hulkenberg this season and helped the German fortify his position within the top 10 – albeit with a sometimes-controversial modus operandi.

At RB, Yuki Tsunoda has been the main points-getter, but the addition of Liam Lawson for the final six rounds should offer a little more exuberance in the midfield. Flashes of performance from Daniel Ricciardo were just that, and the team needs a driver who is a little less sporadic. Lawson, who comfortably sat on the line between points and the positions just outside during his five-race stint for AlphaTauri last year, should be in the mix more often.

It’s going to come down to upgrades here; Haas has a new package that it has earmarked for Austin, while RB should also have a few new parts for the final six races.

The battle for eighth

Contenders: Williams, Alpine, Sauber

Franco Colapinto, Williams FW46, Esteban Ocon, Alpine A524

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

In truth, Williams could be a contender for sixth in the championship given its progression following the summer break. The upgrades that it introduced in Zandvoort were, despite the physically tiny tolerance issues that resulted in its qualifying results being thrown out, a noticeable boost to the team’s fortunes; James Vowles’ team was disappointed not to break into the top 10 in Singapore.

Adding Franco Colapinto into the mix has been a masterstroke; the Argentine has immediately got on terms with Alex Albon and scored a healthy four points in only his second race. For his part, Albon has been able to take the revised FW46 into Q3 on three of the four occasions post-summer.

Alpine can still challenge if Williams is beset by profligacy. Under new team principal Oliver Oakes, the team has largely sharpened up its act at the circuits, while technical chief David Sanchez is tasked with directing both the development of its 2024 car and addressing the A524’s long list of shortcomings into the next design. But the team appears to have stagnated of late, and its development path has been low-key at best.

The same can be said of Sauber. Still scoreless after 18 races, the Swiss squad looks no closer to breaking into the top 10 and may have to rely on a race with an anarchic streak to even get off the mark. Should Alpine improve, it could enter Williams’ orbit – but with Williams largely on the up, the British outfit may contend for an even higher finishing position.

Can a driver with a 52-point lead with six rounds of a Formula 1 season remaining really not be considered the favourite to win the world championship?

To many F1 observers, the Dutchman’s current points pile and cracking capabilities combine to make him unstoppable in 2024. This is regardless of how good McLaren and Lando Norris were in winning commandingly in Singapore last time out, or the fact that Max Verstappen and Red Bull haven’t won since Spain in June.

But Verstappen’s position remains precarious.

For a start, the momentum is firmly with McLaren now. When you add Norris’s similarly crushing Zandvoort win to what he achieved in Singapore (and surely should’ve done at Monza), that’s two from the last four races in 2024’s mini-post-summer break phase of the campaign where the title chaser has delivered wins worthy of Verstappen’s brilliant start to this season.

Verstappen hopes – saying in Singapore that “we are moving in the right direction now”– that Red Bull is over the worst of the car problems that have held it back really since Miami in early May. But even if the work the team has been putting in of late does draw it back level with McLaren around an eagerly anticipated Austin upgrade package, Verstappen is still at risk of just a single DNF blowing this title fight wide open given how many races there are still to come at this stage.

Verstappen’s record in these – Austin, Mexico, Brazil, Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi – is, overall, formidable.

At both the Circuit of the Americas and the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Verstappen is undefeated since they rejoined the F1 calendar after the COVID-19 pandemic. His wins at these tracks in 2021 were critical in eventually winning his first world title that year.

Podium: Race winner Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

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His past is chequered in Brazil. He has two Interlagos wins, but this is also a track where he lost a certain victory in that bizarre clash with Esteban Ocon in 2018, then in 2021 Hamilton roared back (boosted by a fresh engine but still with more to lose in a collision from his grid penalty recovery) and famously won.

The next year, any hope Verstappen had of winning in spite of Red Bull’s tyre trouble was undone in another crash with Hamilton, before his refusal to help Sergio Perez over minor places played out late on.

He has a 50:50 record in Qatar – losing to Hamilton in 2021 before winning on the track’s second GP last year. Verstappen did, however, lose the 2023 Qatar sprint race to Oscar Piastri and of all the remaining races this is the one where McLaren must be considered the overwhelming victory favourite given its high-speed nature.

Las Vegas is another outlier where Ferrari will surely be strong with its ‘Monza special’ rear wing and McLaren no longer running its ‘mini-DRS’ that made headlines in Baku.

Verstappen won the first race with Vegas back on the calendar in 41 years, but really, Charles Leclerc should’ve taken victory but for his misfortune (and Verstappen’s gain) around the mid-race safety car.

At the Abu Dhabi season finale, Verstappen’s form is sensational – he has won every year since 2019 and hasn’t finished off the podium at the Yas Marina track since he was fifth there in 2017.

There is, however, a rather glaring asterisk from that 2021 Abu Dhabi race, as Verstappen was seemingly well beaten by Hamilton before the officiating saga that followed Nicholas Latifi‘s late crash.

Yet, three years later, Verstappen can surely draw inspiration from his 2021 title rival ahead of this final bout of contests against Hamilton’s former team, McLaren. This is how on several occasions through his title steamrollering years with Mercedes, Hamilton often turned the screw on threatening opposition with a series of pivotal, successive victories.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W05 Hybrid, 1st Position, arrives in Parc Ferme after securing the win and the 2014 World Champion

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

In 2014, his five wins in a row after that controversial clash with Nico Rosberg at Spa overturned his team-mate’s once hefty points lead. In 2016, having allowed Rosberg to build momentum with three walk-off wins at the end of 2015, his season-closing four successive wins couldn’t overturn the damage of points lost to several bad starts and that Malaysian GP engine failure that year, but it meant Rosberg couldn’t be sure of the title until the final Abu Dhabi tour.

In 2017, Hamilton came out of the summer break with five wins from six races – Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel now his closest challenger (and ahead in the points before this streak started). This was where Hamilton’s trait of hammering critical points of the season really took on a new dimension, given for the first time in its title run Mercedes was having to deal with what Toto Wolff called a “diva” car.

Perhaps most significantly here, because as for Verstappen in 2024, 2018 was really not a season where Hamilton regularly had the clear best car package.

But he produced another four-race post-Spa/summer break victory streak that snapped any faint hopes Vettel had of wresting back control of the championship. Again, the German had led Hamilton in the standings – until that infamous home-off at Hockenheim.

Hamilton usually rose when the pressure was highest during his title run. And, as Austin and Mexico 2021 showed, Verstappen can do this too – although that is the only season he has really had to work for a title and it came with plenty of controversial moments that could be argued as unresolved weaknesses too. Nevertheless, such rising at critical moments is a trait that separates the great from the good in F1 driver history.

Of course, that current 52-point gap to Norris can’t be forgotten. More often, a driver that has built a critical early points lead will get over the line – with famous examples such as Ayrton Senna for McLaren in 1991, Renault’s Fernando Alonso in 2005 and Jenson Button with Brawn GP in 2009.

So, if Verstappen can pull out a winning streak at this critical moment now in 2024 – starting on what must be considered favourable ground at Austin and in Mexico given his recent records at those tracks – he can make certain of matching Hamilton and Vettel (and Michael Schumacher and Juan Manuel Fangio) in securing four F1 titles in succession.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says people are wrong to think Lewis Hamilton could face some struggles adapting to his new life at Ferrari.

Hamilton is leaving Mercedes at the end of this season after a 12-year spell to join Ferrari as team-mate to Charles Leclerc.

It will be the first time that he has raced for a non-British-based team in F1, having originally started his career with McLaren in 2007.

Some have suggested that Hamilton could face challenges in adapting to a completely different culture at Maranello.

But the seven-time world champion’s current team boss Wolff is convinced that Hamilton will quickly get to grips with things.

“I think many people say that it’s going to be really difficult,” explained Wolff. “But I think if you say it’s going to be really difficult, then often it’s the opposite.

Frederic Vasseur, Team Principal and General Manager, Scuderia Ferrari, with Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes-AMG

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“Ferrari is a great team, great people, lots of emotion and passion and therefore it’s pressure. But I believe they are going to find a way of working with each other.”

Hamilton said earlier this year that he was ignoring the sceptics over a choice he is convinced is correct for him.

“There’s not been a moment where I’ve questioned it, and I’m not swayed by other people’s comments,” he said.

“Even today, there’s people continuing to talk shit, and it will continue on for the rest of the year.

“And I’ll have to just do what I did in the previous time. Only you can know what was right for you. And it will be an exciting time for me.”

The freshness of Antonelli

Wolff added that the emotional ties to Hamilton will likely last forever, but he is also excited at the prospect of a driver shake-up within Mercedes, with young Italian Andrea Kimi Antonelli being chosen as the British driver’s successor.

“I think we had such a great run with Lewis over the last 12 years,” continued Wolff. “He’s always going to be part of the family.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“But obviously, as a competitor, when we try to beat him next year, Kimi joining George clearly brings momentum with it, plus youth and freshness.

“You can feel the kind of smile that is in your organisation with having an 18-year-old in a car.

“But having said that, obviously, there will be moments where Lewis’s experience would have benefited the team.

“Kimi is going to be on a steep learning curve, but it’s absolutely the right thing for the team to do and there’s not one person that would have done it differently.”

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