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Thierry Neuville extended his Central European Rally lead over Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier to edge another step closer to sealing a maiden World Rally Championship title.

Neuville produced an impressive drive through six tricky asphalt stages held in the Czech Republic to increase his advantage over the eight-time world champion to 6.4s.

The Hyundai driver took the rally lead in stage five, the third test of the day, and was able to make the most of starting first on the road to lead an event that could decide the world championship, with Neuville needing only to outscore Ogier by 10 points and Hyundai’s Ott Tanak by two points to clinch a maiden world title this weekend.

Tanak struggled to find the ideal set-up, ending Friday in third [+7.8s] ahead of Toyota’s Elfyn Evans [+15.1s] and the returning Takamoto Katsuta [+38.6s].

Rally1 rookie Sami Pajari [+1m28.2s] and M-Sport-Ford duo Adrien Fourmaux [+1m33.4s] and Gregoire Munster [2m27.4s] rounded out the top eight. Hyundai’s Andreas Mikkelsen crashed out of the rally after clattering into a fence in stage five, having held sixth position.    

A third pass through the Klatovy, 11.78km test kicked off the afternoon before crews headed to a remote service. 

The stage win went to Katsuta who managed to navigate what had become a very dirty road, 0.4s faster than rally leader Neuville.

Takamoto Katsuta, Aaron Johnston, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1

Photo by: M-Sport

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“I enjoyed it a lot, tough conditions but I was confident to push,” said Katsuta. 

Ogier was a second adrift of Katsuta as the Frenchman’s deficit to Neuville grew to 3.3s.

Tanak also dropped time with Estonian reporting that he was still “dreaming” of a good set-up on his i20 N. 

However, he was faring much better than Fourmaux as he tried to tame his Ford Puma with the added disadvantage of a malfunctioning hybrid unit.

“It is very frustrating honestly, I try my best but the car is so hard to drive, under braking the car is moving a lot. We are trying many things in the road section and it’s not working,” said Forumaux.

It didn’t get much better for the Frenchman after the remote service as the shock suffered by his hybrid unit from a jump landing was too severe and it was unable to be reset for the final two stages. Set-up tweaks made in service did at least improve the handling to some extent.

Neuville claimed his first fastest time of the day after winning stage seven (Strasin, 26.69km). 

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

Photo by: Fabien Dufour / Hyundai Motorsport

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The second pass through the longest stage of the rally was much drier than anticipated as the Belgian clocked a time 0.6s faster than Evans, who wished he’d opted for hard-compound tyres. 

Tanak appeared to have made some progress with the set-up of his i20 N to post the third fastest time, while Ogier was surprised to drop 3.6s.

“We are just not fast enough, it was a clean stage but we are missing a bit of pace. The car feels nice to drive but we have to check,” said Ogier, who was 1.2s faster than Katsuta.

The fourth Toyota driven by Pajari had a brief run-in with a hedge but successfully reached the stage end faster than the struggling Fords of Fourmaux and Munster.

Light drizzle affected the final stage of the day (Sumavske Hostice 2 16.85km) to further elevate the difficulty of the technical test.

Ogier was however able to respond to the time loss from the previous stage by setting the pace. The Toyota driver was 0.5s faster than Neuville to cut the lead to 6.4s.

“l’m happy to be at the end. It is easy to make a mistake and I knew the only thing that was important to us was to make it to the end,” said Neuville.

Elfyn Evans, Scott Martin, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1

Photo by: Toyota Racing

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Evans lost ground on the top three after what he described as “a bit of funny feeling” towards the end of the stage that pushed him 7.3s shy of third-placed Tanak.

In WRC2, Nikolay Gryazin completed the six stages with a 3.1s lead over Oliver Solberg, who is not scoring points this weekend. 

Yohan Rossel’s title hopes took another hit after a wild moment in the final stage. The Frenchman needs to win the class to keep his championship alive, but ended the day 1m36.7s behind Gryazin.

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Dylan Medler won Race 2 of the Ferrari Challenge North America, triumphing in the final event of the day held at the Enzo e Dino Ferrari Circuit in Imola.

Thanks to this success, the driver of the team The Collection also won the title of the Pro class. In Coppa Shell NA, the title went to Eric Marsten despite him being shoved into the gravel, while Brian Cook was crowned Pro-Am champion and Roger Monteforte secured the Shell-AM category title.

Medler got off to a great start, taking the lead from Roberto Perrina (Ferrari of Seattle), second, and Matias Perez Companc (Ferrari of Central Florida), third. In the early stages of the race, there was a terrific scrap between Medler and Perrina for the lead. Perez Companc, on the other hand, immediately lost ground to the leading duo.

Brian Cook, on the other hand, took the lead in the Pro-Am class ahead of Frank Szczesniak. In Coppa Shell, Rey Acosta was leading with a large margin over his direct rivals, even moving up to seventh overall, while Jeffrey Nunberg immediately took the lead in the Shell-AM class.

With 10 minutes to go, Race Direction imposed the entry of the Safety Car due to an off-track exit by Al Hegyi (Ferrari of Newport), thus freezing the positions, but eliminating the gaps. This led to a much more interesting final part of the race.

With five minutes to go, the Safety Car returned to the pits, thus leaving the drivers with the final skirmishes to try to win the race and the titles of their respective categories.

The Safety Car, however, returned to the track immediately due to a contact in which Marston came off the worst, ending up off the track and beached in the gravel. Bernier ended up ahead of the Ferrari of Westlake driver, but at the end of the race, Marston was classified and scored enough points to clinch the category title.

Ferrari Challenge North America – Imola – Race 2

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