Day 1
An emotional opening start with all the WRC Teams & Drivers paying tribute to the late Craig Been. In respect to the Irish star, Hyundai unveiled special liveries and announced that car number 42 would not be used again throughout the 2023 season.
Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville emerged with the lead at Rally Croatia on Friday morning after early leader Sebastien Ogier and world rally champion Kalle Rovanpera were forced to change a wheel.
Two punctures for both Toyota parings was not the best start for the Japanese outfit as they announced that they would only nominate two cars in the team standings this weekend as a mark of respect to Craig Breen.
Neuville held a 16.1s rally lead on Friday morning after early leader Sebastien Ogier suffered a wheel failure on his Toyota during stage 2, but the Belgian faced a stern challenge from Toyota’s Evans in the afternoon.
M-Sport-Ford’s Ott Tanak completed the loop third overall, 30s adrift, with Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi sitting fourth a further 3.4s back.
Things was to get worse for Ogier as he also received a 1 minute time penalty for a seatbelt infringement demoting him further down the field.
Day 2
Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville crashed out of the lead at Rally Croatia on Saturday morning at the asphalt World Rally Championship event.
The Belgian ran wide at a medium-speed right hander in stage 11 (10.13km) and clipped a rock with the rear of his I20 N, which sent the car off the road and into the trees lining the road.
Neuville and co-driver Martijn Wydaeghe emerged from the incident unscathed but the damage to the car was too severe to continue.
This meant we had a new rally leader and it was the welshman Elfyn Evans leading it at the top. Evans wouldtake a healthy 25.4-second lead into the final day of Rally Croatia after Ott Tanak suffered an issue with his Ford Puma that stemmed his charge.
Evans faced a stern challenge from Tanak in the afternoon, who reduced the gap to 12.5s before a mechanical issue struck his car in the day’s penultimate stage.
Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi struggled for outright pace throughout, but held onto a comfortable third, 55.4s adrift in the sole remaining i20 N.
Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier managed to haul himself from seventh to fourth courtesy of three stage wins across the day, but is only 2.0s ahead of his world champion team-mate Kalle Rovanpera.
Day 3
Toyota’s Elfyn Evans in the end claimed a comfortable World Rally Championship victory in Croatia after extending his lead on Sunday morning.
In is first win in over 18 months, produced a measured drive across the morning’s stages to push his advantage to an unassailable advantage over M-Sports Ott Tanak who finished a solid second. Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi maintained third.
World champion Kalle Rovanpera leapfrogged Toyota team-mate Sebastien Ogier into fourth. Katsuta finished 6th, Loubet 7th, Yohan Rossel claimed the RC2 class honours and 8th overall, Nikolay Gryazin 9th in the Skoda and Oliver Solberg completing the top 10.
Thierry Neuville won the power stage claiming five points but finished 12th overall due to that crash he sustained on Saturday.
