After several spins, the Belgian, although leading the competition, lost his lead this Saturday. Sébastien Ogier is now leader.
The Belgian Thierry Neuville, leading the Central European Rally since Friday and who could be crowned world champion at the end of this event, experienced several racing incidents on Saturday which relegated him to 4th place.
The Hyundai driver spun several times in the third special of the day while his lead over his closest competitor had already fallen from 6.4 seconds the previous evening to just 0.8 seconds on Saturday.
Trapped by slippery roads while the notes read by his teammate were calculated for dry roads, Neuville even got stuck in a gutter from which he took almost a minute to extricate himself. He consequently fell at midday to 4th place, 33.6 seconds behind the leader who is now the Frenchman Sébastien Ogier (Toyota) followed by another Hyundai driver, the Estonian Ott Tänak at 4.6 seconds.
Neuville is in a position to win his first WRC world title at the end of this penultimate round of the WRC championship which will take place between the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria. All he needs to do is score two points more than Tänak. But this is no longer the case in the current state of positions on Saturday at midday.
The WRC championship scale, however, sees additional points awarded depending on the results of the last day of the rally on Sunday, which could change the situation again.
