NEUVILLE CROWNED 2024 WORLD CHAMPION AT RALLY JAPAN

The Belgian produces a comeback drive to sixth place to regain the points he needed for victory, which was only assured once Tanak retired on Sunday morning

Toyota grabs the manufacturers' title at the last special stage

Pajari adds the WRC2 title ahead of Solberg and Gryazin

Testoni: “A thrilling season which is not yet over: for us and many of the competitors the conclusion will be at the Monza Rally Show”  

Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville has been crowned world rally champion, Toyota is the manufacturer’ champion while Sam Pajari (Toyota) is WRC2 champion. Those are the key facts from Rally Japan, which apart from deciding the outcomes of the 2024 season, also produced a thrilling rally with a surprise winner in Elfyn Evans (Toyota) after Sunday morning’s retirement of Ott Tanak, who had been the undisputed leader up to that point. 

THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
The destinations of the world titles remained undecided right up to the end, to the point that the Super Sunday of Rally Japan begun with a huge range of outcomes still possible and with favourite Neuville, who had suffered misfortunes on Friday, forced to claw back the points he needed to make his championship mathematically certain. The drivers’ title race only finally resolved itself with the accident on SS 17 for Tanak, who thus ended his season in third place behind Evans. The manufacturer’ championship was also up for grabs all the way to the final Power Stage, which was won by Sébastien Ogier – a result that handed Toyota the championship in the tightest of circumstances. As for Hyundai, the favourites heading into the event, it turned out that the Super Sunday performances by the rejuvenated Andreas Mikkelsen, who had thus far been in the shadows, and Neuville were not enough. In the WRC2 title race, second place gave Pajari the points he needed to leapfrog Oliver Solberg (Skoda) who ended up second ahead of Nicolay Gryazin (Citroen). 

THE RALLY
Until his accident early on Sunday, the rally had an undisputed leader in Tanak, partly thanks to his accurate choice and management of the tyres, with Evans chasing him at a safe distance. Behind the pair of them, however, the battle was always very intense, with Sébastien Ogier fighting for the podium and Neuville doing everything to work his way back up the order in his bid to scrape together enough points to guarantee himself the championship. In the end the podium had Evans on the top step, Ogier second and Adrien Fourmaux third, with the new world champion down in sixth place. In WRC2 Gryazin was always the clear leader, followed by Pajari and Hiroki Harai (Skoda). 
The strategies employed by the teams varied when it came to tyres. The rally took place in dry weather, but on roads that were still quite damp and with grip levels that were extremely variable. This forced the teams to make regular use of the Soft compound P Zero tyres (which was the option at this rally) either in combination with the Hard or even by themselves, such as on Saturday morning (all five used the Softs except for Fourmaux and Grégoire Munster) and during the stages in the Toyota Stadium (where most but not all chose the Softs).

PIRELLI QUOTE
Terenzio Testoni, Rally activity manager: “My compliments go to Thierry, Toyota and Sam for their championship victories. Congratulations to them all, along with their title competitors for offering us a thrilling season that remained on a knife-edge until the very end – just as happened with the rally itself in Japan. This event proved tough and often unpredictable, meaning the tyres – and the softs in particular – were forced to deal with the never-ending changes to the grip from the tarmac, a challenge that led to the main difficulty for the drivers. Yet the season is not yet over either for us or for some of the key competitors of the championship. The next date is set for the Monza Rally Show in Italy on December 5-8. Apart from seeing the WRC1 cars taking part in another battle, we will talk about our future in rallying. We will also carry out an analysis of the extraordinary last four years, during which we have learned so much, a period that has given us the chance to take stock both individually and as a team. We have kept making developments until the very end and we have continued to collect information which will serve us in the future, seeing as on the one hand we are coming to the end of the 2021-2024 cycle as the sole tyre supplier for the WRC and on the other hand a new cycle has already begun that will see us taking part in other rally championships. Many people have asked me if we will feel nostalgic about the world championship… but we have only beautiful memories and the certainty of having got to know some wonderful people. Nostalgia is reserved for those who are departing the scene, and that isn’t the case for us.”