Day 1
World Rally Championship title contenders Thierry Neuville and Elfyn Evans incredibly shared the rally lead in Croatia after Friday’s eight stages.
The pair couldn’t be split after 119.74 competitive stage kilometres, ending the day with identical overall times.
Neuville had been in control of the rally, winning three of the four morning stages that contributed to a 10.1-second lead over Evans, before knocking a tyre off the rim in stage six.
Sebastien Ogier also hauled himself into the victory fight with a stunning final stage effort to close to within 6.6s of the lead pair.
Hyundai’s Ott Tanak, who steadily found improvements after a slow start to the rally held fourth, 41.1s in arrears, while M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux rounded out the top five [+52.7s].
Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta [+1m37.8s], Hyundai’s Andreas Mikkelsen [+2m37.8s] and M-Sport’s Gregoire Munster [+3m07.3s] completed the Rally1 field.
Day 2
Neuville emerged from a thrilling head-to-head battle with Toyota’s Elfyn Evans with the Croatia Rally lead heading into the final day.
A maximum attack approach, assisted by a beneficial tyre call in unpredictable weather, ultimately resulted in Hyundai driver Neuville ending the day with a 4.9s lead from Evans. The pair picked up 18 and 15 provisional championship points respectively, which can be collected if they finish the rally on Sunday.
Eight-time world champion and part-time Toyota driver Sebastien Ogier kept himself in the victory battle, 11.6s adrift in third, scooping up 13 points. Hyundai’s Ott Tanak held fourth [+1m15.5s] to claim 10 points ahead of M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux [+1m35.4s], who snared a provisional eight points.
Day 3
Sebastien Ogier clinched victory in Croatia after emerging from a tense three-way fight with World Rally Championship title contenders Thierry Neuville and Elfyn Evans that ended in dramatic circumstances.
Ogier took the first win of his 2024 partial campaign from Evans by 9.7s, while Neuville had to settle for third [+45.9s] after his costly error.
Evans cut the deficit to 2.6s before the pair both made errors and ran into different grass banks on stage 18. Evans lost 19.6s following his impact that pitched the car into a spin, while Neuville shipped 23.3s after emerging from the bank with a damaged rear wing and no hybrid power on his i20 N.
Neuville attributed the mistake to a late pacenote call.
Hyundai’s Ott Tanak finished a distant fourth overall [+58.6s] after struggling with the setup of his i20N. Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta finished fifth [+1m55.5s] and ended Sunday’s classification fastest to claim seven points on top of two more from the Power Stage.
M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux had held fifth for the majority of the rally before clipping an anti-cut device in stage 18, which cost the Frenchman 16 minutes to repair his steering.
Fourmaux reached the finish to bank his eight points for finishing fifth on Saturday, and then snatched a further five points from winning the Power Stage, to maintain third in the championship.
Andreas Mikkelsen’s second Rally1 hybrid appearance for Hyundai ended in sixth [+4m01.0s] ahead of M-Sport’s Gregoire Munster [+5m11.0s], who enjoyed a clean rally.
In WRC2, Nikolay Gryazin took a comfortable 38.2s victory from Citroen team-mate Yohan Rossel.
