May 10th to May 12th marked a historic moment in the WRC’s history with Chile playing host to the WRC for the first time ever. With it being the first running of the event it provides an unusual opportunity in that everyone is on a level playing field, no one has tackled the stages before.
The muddy stages could almost be mistaken for the forests and moors of North & Mid Wales from Wales Rally GB on a sunny day, and the high speed nature of some of the stages with some big jumps has shades of Finland about it as well; so teams have plenty of data to draw from as a baseline when setting their cars up for the upcoming test.
Thierry Neuville comes into Rally Chile as the championship leader and was looking to consolidate his position, but the racing gods did not smile on Neuville & co-driver Nicolas Gilsoul, something which will be explained later in this piece.
The opening day got underway and without even a pause for breath, Ott Tanak, Sebastien Ogier and Thierry Neuville were locked in a fierce battle. Jari-Matti Latvala was running quickly but was slipping back from the top 3. Kris Meeke and Sebastien Loeb were both running a strong pace, but much like Latvala were struggling to live with the blistering speed on display from Tanak, Ogier & Neuville. Elfyn Evans in his Ford was enjoying a decent run through the opening day with consistency being the name of the game.
In WRC drama is never too far away and Andreas Mikkelsen found it when he hit a rock on the opening stage, causing minor damage to his car which had clearly knocked the handling of his Hyundai out of sync. This was compounded on Stage 5 when he put the car on two wheels and very nearly rolled his Hynudai into the very pretty Chilean scenery.
At the close of the day, a resurgent Jari-Matti Latvala leapfrogged the Hyundai of Neuville to move into third place.
Day 1 closed with the top 5 looking like this:
- Ott Tanak
- Sebastien Ogier
- Jari-Matti Latvala
- Thierry Neuville
- Kris Meeke
Day 2 opened with Ott Tanak starting to steadily hammer home his advantage over Seb Ogier. Both battled throughout the day, but it was quickly becoming apparent that it was advantage Toyota as with each stage Tanak eked a little more pace from his Toyota than Ogier could extract from his Citroen C3.
The big news of the day though involved Thierry Neuville and co-driver Nicolas Gilsoul; Rally Chile bore its teeth and did not hold back. Neuville negotiated a fast right hand corner over a crest at high speed, but as the car briefly left the ground and came back down sideways, the Hyundai smashed into a grassy bank to drivers left. The result was a massive crash which saw the Hyundai barrel roll, then roll end over end several times. It was a violent crash that no true motorsport fan ever wants to witness.
By some miracle, Thierry Neuville came away unscathed although co-driver Nicolas Gilsoul sustained bruising to his ankle. Unsurprisingly, it was the end of Neuville & Gilsoul’s rally and we wish Nicolas Gilsoul a speedy recovery in time for the next event at Rally Portugal.
The rest of the day saw Sebastien Loeb & Jari-Matti Latvala roll the clock back 10 years, both were locked in a fierce battle for third place; both were also closing down on the second placed Seb Ogier, who was complaining about a lack of pace in the Citroen as he lost touch with the Toyota of Tanak and was being hunted down by Latvala & Loeb.
Latvala however would have to concede to Loeb; the final stage saw him hit a rock in his Toyota Yaris, breaking a driveshaft and calling time prematurely on his day, a bitter blow for the plucky Finn. For another Finn, it was a superb show of form for Teemu Sunninen who drove his socks off to move his Ford Fiesta from ninth up to fifth place.
After an eventful second day, the standings were thus going into the final day:
- Ott Tanak
- Sebastien Ogier
- Sebastien Loeb
- Elfyn Evans
- Teemu Sunninen
The final day of the event did not offer up much opportunity for the drivers to overhaul anyone in front of them, the day consisting of just 4 stages. Ott Tanak deployed a clever strategy through the morning of day three. Tanak, knowing he had a quicker car and an advantage over Ogier decided to run a more conservative pace to save his tyres for the powerstage later in the day; the rationale behind this is that Tanak could potentially net an additional 5 bonus points by winning the stage, strengthening his championship assault.
This strategy saw Tanak lose some time in the morning as Ogier gave it the beans and pushed like a madman to try and close down Tanak; however, this was also in response to a fully lit Sebastien Loeb who was flying in his Hyundai and was closing down Ogier. Behind, Elfyn Evans was running a metronomic pace in fourth and teammate Teemu Sunninen was coming under increasing pressure from Esapekka Lappi in his Citroen.
The final power stage was primed and set, would Tanak’s strategy of having fresher tyres yield that powerstage win? The answer was a resounding yes as Tanak blitzed the competition to win the stage and take home those 5 extra bonus points along with the rally win, netting the full 30 points. Behind, Ogier held off Loeb to finish in second and Loeb rounded out the top 3 after a heroic charge against Ogier. Elfyn Evans finished in fourth after a trouble free run and capitalising on others misfortune. Teemu Sunninen rounded out the top 5, Esapekka Lappi’s charge came to an abrupt halt when he spun in the powerstage dropping 15 seconds and sealing a sixth place finish.
At the close of the rally and an imperious performance by Ott Tanak, here are the results:
- Ott Tanak
- Sebastien Ogier
- Sebastien Loeb
- Elfyn Evans
- Teemu Sunninen
The championship standings after 6 rounds are as follows:
- Sebastien Ogier 122 points
- Ott Tanak 112 points
- Thierry Neuville 110 points
- Kris Meeke 56 points
- Elfyn Evans 55 points
As the championship heads to the next round on the fabled gravel of Rally Portugal, it’s rapidly becoming clear that Ogier, Tanak & Neuville are our main championship protagonists; it will take a run of wins for Evans or Meeke to bring themselves back into contention at this stage.
Round 7 and the halfway point of the championship will take place in Rally Portugal May 30th to June 2nd.