Thierry Neuville says that his target is to defend his championship lead on the last three rounds of the championship and explains which was his strategy during the season.
The Belgian became the first WRC driver, who scored the maximum points with the new point structure, and this happened at Rallye Monte Carlo eight month ago. Since then, he has not dropped from the first place on the drivers' championship, but now he is getting closer to his maiden WRC crown as he is 34 points ahead of the second Ott Tanak with three rallies remaining until the end of this year. Rally Chile is the next event on the calendar and Neuville will start first on the road again on Friday, but the championship concludes with two tarmac events where he will have an advantage as he will not have to clean the stages for the following drivers. Last but not least, it must be mentioned that Hyundai has neven won a driver title since the team rejoined World Rally Championship back in 2014 and Neuville is set to become the first Hyundai driver who will achieve that.
"We took the 30 possible points on the first attempt with the new regulations and we quickly understood at that time that Sundays would be important", Neuville said.
"It doesn’t matter which position you’re in, even if you’re leading the rally, the Sunday is crucial and you need to push for it.
"So that’s what we have done.
"Obviously being first on the road so far on all rallies has been a handicap.
"So the target has always been to continuously improve our road position day-by-day to be in a good position to chase more points on Sunday.
"And somehow it has worked well, and we have taken the necessary risks on Sunday so far to secure more points.
"But now the story might be different – we have a good lead and now it’s all about protecting those points for the last three remaining rounds".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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