World Rally Championship title favourite Thierry Neuville went off the road in stage 11 twice to hand Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier the lead at the Central European Rally.

The Hyundai driver’s lead came under pressure on Saturday morning from team-mate Ott Tanak before Neuville relieved the pressure.

However, two mistakes in the final stage of the loop dropped the championship leader to fourth, 33.6s behind new rally leader Ogier. 

Tanak, whom Neuville needs to outscore by two points to seal the world title this weekend, moved to second, 4.6s adrift, with Toyota’s Elfyn Evans fourth [+8.3s]. Takamoto Katsuta [+1m02.4s], Sami Pahari [+1m49.9s] and Gregoire Munster [+2m51.0s] rounded out the top seven.    

M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux retired from the day’s action after stage 10.

Challenging wet and foggy conditions welcomed the crews for Saturday’s first stage in Germany (Grant und Wald, 20.0km), which triggered plenty of drama.

Andreas Mikkelsen was the first to tackle the conditions after rejoining the rally having crashed out on stage five yesterday. The Hyundai driver suffered a slow speed spin on his way through the test he described as “very tricky”. 

Andreas Mikkelsen, Torstein Eriksen, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

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M-Sport’s Fourmaux, who felt there was something wrong with his car on Friday, was fortunate to continue after a wild moment when he ran wide onto a large grass run-off that resulted in his Puma sliding into trees. 

Luckily, he was able to continue, reporting that an intermittent front differential issue was to blame for the off.

“We have a huge issue on the front differential that we realised on the road section, I have no drive on the front, it is like driving a rear wheel drive all the time. As soon as there is dirt [on the road] it is hard to get it to go straight. It is undrivable,” said Fourmaux, who now had the use of his hybrid unit following yesterday’s failure. 

WRC2 driver Oliver Solberg suffered a similar moment at the same corner moments later but was able to avoid running into the trees. 

The tricky conditions were however tamed by Tanak, who produced a blistering effort to win the stage by 3.9s from Ogier to move ahead of the Toyota driver into second overall. 

“The car feels better today than yesterday but it is extremely demanding conditions out there,” said Tanak.

Rally leader Neuville opted for a steady approach in the slippery conditions that resulted in a time seven seconds slower than team-mate Tanak. Neuville’s rally lead had been cut to 0.8s over Tanak. 

The pressure on Neuville’s was slightly relieved in stage 10 (Beyond Borders 24.33km) as Tanak surprisingly dropped time through the test that straddled the Austrian and German border.

Tanak was 7.2s slower than the pace set by Elfyn Evans, who hauled himself back into the victory fight thanks to an impressive drive in difficult-to-judge damp conditions. Evans’ effort left the Toyota driver 10.1s behind rally leader Neuville. 

Neuville continued to stick to his plan in the challenging conditions, completing the stage without issue, 2.3s slower than Evans. Neuville was 1.1s slower than Ogier, who jumped ahead of Tanak back into second overall. At the end of the stage, Neuville actually increased his rally lead to 2.2s over Ogier.

There was further drama for Fourmaux who endured two off-road excursions. The Ford driver survived a first run onto grass but the second resulted in an impact to the rear of his Puma that necessitated a wheel change.

Fourmaux was able to reach the stage end but the damage to the rear of the car was too severe to continue. 

Team-mate Munster was also fortunate to continue without a stoppage after clipping a kerb with his left rear wheel. On the next test, he endured a brief run into a field that cost him valuable seconds. 

Munster wasn’t the only driver to find the grass in stage 11 (Schardinger Innviertel, 17.35 km) as Katsuta ran wide at right hander that left his Toyota sliding onto the run-off, before returning to the asphalt.

Grégoire Munster, Louis Louka, M-Sport Ford World Rally Team Ford Puma Rally1

Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images

Rally leader Neuville was the next to find the grass as the drama ramped up another level. The Hyundai driver ran wide at a left-hander and ran onto the grass and into a 360 spin. 

After recovering from the mistake an optimistic pacenote led to another off that cost the championship leader even more time. Neuville was able to spin the car on the grass but became briefly stuck in a ditch while trying to get back onto the road.

Ogier inherited the rally lead while winning the stage in the process by 0.1s from Evans.

In WRC2, Yohan Rossel’s title hopes evaporated after a mistake on stage nine cost him more than 14 minutes. Rossel’s team-mate Nikolay Gryazin maintained his rally lead of the class ahead of the afternoon’s stages.

Williams Formula 1 boss James Vowles is so convinced that Franco Colapinto deserves a drive next season he does not mind the Argentinian returns to take points off of his current team.

Colapinto has caught the eye since he was promoted into an F1 seat from the Italian Grand Prix onwards after Vowles took the decision to ditch Logan Sargeant following a string of poor performances and costly crashes.

Eyebrows were raised over the decision to put F2 prospect Colapinto on board rather than a more experienced driver such as Mick Schumacher, but after just three races Vowles’ call appear to have been vindicated.

Colapinto has impressed in his three F1 grands prix so far, recovering from a poor qualifying to finish 12th in Monza before outqualifying team-mate Alex Albon at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and going on to take his first points as he came home eighth.

He then tussled with Sergio Perez before finishing 11th in Singapore and heads into this weekend’s United States Grand Prix with the praise from the Red Bull driver ringing in his ears.

However, with Williams having Albon paired up with Carlos Sainz from next year, there is no room for Colapinto to land a full-time drive. But Vowles wants to see him race in 2025, with seats at Sauber and RB still up for grabs.

“It’s definitely not out of the question,” Vowles replied when asked at an Autosport Business panel event in Austin if Colapinto could be on the grid next year.

“It’s more down to one or two other teams, not giving it away too much but, from my perspective, he absolutely has earned his place on the grid within a few races.

Franco Colapinto, Williams Racing

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

“He hasn’t finished growing, he’s going to get quicker and quicker, and I think other teams know that on the grid. So even if he’s taking points away from us, he’s a professional racing driver and should be racing in Formula 1. Simple as that.”

Colapinto’s first taste of F1 came when he took the wheel for FP1 at the British Grand Prix earlier this year.
Vowles knew instantly that the 21-year-old was fast, but has been excited by how he has maintained such speed when the chips are down.

“Taking a step back, I knew he was immensely quick,” he added.

“The first time we put him in the car at Silverstone, you sort of looked at it and went, ‘jeez, this is that quick’.

“But there’s no pressure on your shoulders [in FP1]. How does that translate when there’s pressure?

“Since then he’s been…Singapore is probably the toughest race to throw someone in at the deep end and he basically delivered an absolute near-perfect result the first time out.”

Max Verstappen secured a thrilling pole position for Saturday’s sprint race at the United States Grand Prix, edging out Mercedes’ George Russell by a razor-thin margin of just 0.012 seconds. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has dismissed the investigation into their front bib as nothing more than a distraction tactic by rivals. Join Alex Kalinauckas and Jon Noble as they delve into this, along with all the latest updates from the F1 action in Austin.

0:00 Latest news on Red Bull front bib dilemma

4:00 Max Verstappens pole lap

5:38 Mercedes’ upgrades and performance

7:18 Tyre issues for the teams

8:05 McLaren’s poor performance

9:22 News tidbits ahead of the weekend 

Giacomo Altoé crushed the competition by triumphing in the final race of the Trofeo Pirelli – Trofeo Pirelli AM of the 2024 Ferrari Challenge at Imola’s Enzo e Dino Ferrari circuit with a superb run to beat Luigi Coluccio and Bence Valint.

The Italian got off to a perfect start from pole, maintaining the lead, but Luca Ludwig, starting from third place, made a nice overtaking move on Philipp Baron at the Tamburello chicane, immediately moving up to second and hunting down the Italian of the Emil Frey Racing team.

Altoé tried to put a bit of a gap between himself and the German to allow him to catch his breath and not be put under pressure at every braking point. Baron, in turn, tried to maintain the pace of the first two, but without much success.

The Austrian from the Scuderia Praha Racing team quickly lost ground from Altoé and Ludwig and had to deal with the attacks from Bence Valint, winner of Thursday’s Race 1, which took place in the pouring rain.
There was a dramatic turn of events after nine minutes of racing, when Ludwig came into the pits due to a problem with his Mertel Motorsport Ferrari 296. The German then returned to the track, but one lap down on all the others.

At the same time, Baron was given a 5-second penalty to add to his race time for having exceeded the track limits too many times. After battling with Valint and Luigi Coluccio for second place, the penalty put paid to his hopes of taking second place. Thanks to a great overtaking move on the penultimate lap, Coluccio (Radicci Automobili) overtook Valint for second place.

Altoé, on the other hand, apparently had an easy time without his main rival. But with 11 minutes to go, his teammate Hanno Laskowski spun at Tamburello, getting stuck in the gravel. This triggered the first Safety Car of the day, neutralising the almost 30” advantage Altoé had managed to build up in the first 19 minutes of the race.

In the Trofeo Pirelli AM class, Hendrik Viol took the Scuderia Praha Racing 296 to victory ahead of the already crowned champion Claus Zibrandtsen (Formula Racing) and Michael Verhagen.

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“It’s like they say, everything happens for a reason,” David Malukas told Motorsport.com. “If I look back, I am probably 10 times the driver that I feel like before with everything that happened this year.

Malukas reckoned with some steep odds through his 2024 IndyCar Series season and has come out the other side better because of it. It was a year that began with Arrow McLaren, which quickly fell awry after he suffered a mountain biking crash less than a month before the season and forced him on the sidelines with an injured left wrist that required surgery. He was released less than three months later, with the team citing his unavailability and no return date confirmed. 

The outgoing Chicago-born product then checked out of social media briefly and took a mental reset, of sorts, before landing an opportunity to return to the cockpit in early June with Meyer Shank Racing for the remaining nine races of the season. Despite not having fully recovered, he pushed through his injury with impressive pace, starting in the top six five times, including a best of second (twice – St. Louis, Milwaukee 1). He was also left wondering what could have been with potential wins fading after crashing after contact from Team Penske’s Will Power in St. Louis and being on the wrong end of a strategy call in Nashville. 

The results table will only show two top 10s with a best result of sixth at the bumpy and tough concrete playground that makes up the streets of Toronto, but doesn’t do justice to the real pace Malukas was generating in his comeback. 

David Malukas, Meyer Shank Racing Honda

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

“I’m still very young (23) and I’m still learning every single time,” Malukas said. “I made a lot of mistakes this year and had a wild ride of ups and downs, but in the end, I think everything worked out the way it should have been.” 

Malukas also benefited from reviewing data from several talented drivers across his time at Arrow McLaren, along with MSR and its technical alliance with Andretti Global.

“I learned a lot,” he said. “I was able to get driver information from Pato (O’Ward), from (Alexander) Rossi, and (Marcus) Ericsson, (Colton) Herta, Kyle (Kirkwood) and (Felix) Rosenqvist. I mean, these are all top drivers and all special in their own ways. To get all that information to fill it up on me, I mean it was a big chunk. 

“I’ve also matured a lot. With having that incident and coming back from it, I’m definitely going to be taking care of myself this whole offseason. But overall, I’m very happy. I don’t have a full left hand back, but I think that’s a good price to pay to reach my max potential. If this year didn’t happen and things turned out differently, I don’t think I would be at the potential I am right now.”

When asked more about the injury, Malukas held both hands up and demonstrated the difference in available movement by bending back his right hand but unable to do the same with his left, with it barely moving from its vertical stance. 

“Maybe it can get a little bit better,” he said. I think that was part of the risk, too, is getting back into a car I kind of had to put my hand recovery a little bit on hold.

“There’s still an opportunity to get some of it back. It’ll never be 100%, but if we can get some of it back then I think we’ll be out of the window of it being a bit of a pain in the car. But right now, it’s definitely still been an issue this year, getting to need it wrapped and giving it extra stability. Just with all that movement, it doesn’t have… I kind of need that little bit extra, like 10 more degrees. 

“So, I hope that we can get it and if so, then going into next season it should be something that I don’t even remember.”

And Malukas will want to be at his maximum as he prepares for next year with AJ Foyt Racing as part of a two-car lineup that also features Santino Ferrucci. 

While that venture looms in 2025, Malukas also can’t help but look back fondly on his brief but stout time with the team co-owned by Mike Shank and Jim Meyer. 

“Yeah, definitely it’s bittersweet,” Malukas said. 

“The way things turned out with all the talking and all that stuff, things were a bit slower than we wanted it and we ended up going somewhere else. From my side, the team’s been incredible. I’m going to say it over and over again: I think this team, they saved me. They saved my career. 

“When it comes to IndyCar, you can be known and unknown very quickly. You could be forgotten. And they took a chance on me. Without them, I probably would not have had an opportunity to get into a car this year and it wouldn’t be until next year. To get a seat, there’s so many good drivers available right now and it would have been a much harder situation if it wasn’t for them, so a big thank you to Mike, Jim and all the crew guys. They treated me like family. As soon as I came in there, it was smiles and having a good time. 

“And no matter what the results were, I’m frustrated, pissed off, happy or whatever, they’re always just smiling and they’re like, ‘Dude, this has been awesome’ and having a good time. And the pit stops were insane. … They were rockets. Such a good group of guys. It’s definitely a little bittersweet to leave them, but at least we made some good memories along the way.”