Thierry Neuville is still frustrated with lack of performance in Latvia last week and is grateful that Hyundai supported him, but he admits that he will not give up and will continue fighting despite the eight gravel rallies in a row and the three fast gravel rallies back-to-back.
The Belgian driver had to open the roads on Friday in Latvia since he is the championship leader, but he dropped massive time compared to his rivals due to the massive cleaning. In fact, he had to clean five stages on Friday as three of the eight stages was running only once. He was tenth overall at the end of Stage 7, but Hyundai gave team orders and Esapekka Lappi slipped behind Neuville to tenth place after the end of SS8. He managed to steal the eighth place from Gregoire Munster at the end of the Saturday opening stage, but he remained at that position until the end of Rally Latvia. Neuville scored nine points in total last week (three points from Saturday classification, three points from SuperSunday and three points from Powerstage) and saw his lead being disappeared as Ott Tanak and Elfyn Evans are now eight and thirteen points behind respectively. Rally Finland will be held next week and Neuville will be first on the road again on Friday while it must be mentioned that fast gravel rallies are not his favorite ones at the WRC calendar.
"We weren’t surprised to be as hampered as we were this weekend; I don’t have anything to add but I want to thank the team for being resilient and supporting me this weekend, which was very important", Neuville said.
"We will continue to fight as we have done since the start of the season.
"We have another fast rally coming up in Finland, but it shouldn’t be as bad as this weekend as the repeated stages will be a big change to Latvia.
"I won’t give up and I will continue to fight, but eight gravel rallies in a row is very challenging, and three fast events back-to-back - which are not the ones I have been stronger at in the past - only adds to this".
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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