Neuville won the rally, collected the most championship points, and extended his lead in the title race. His teammate, Ott Tänak, who finished third in Greece, is 34 points behind him. Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier, who rolled his car on the final stage, now trails Neuville by 38 points.
“It’s still hard to realise what happened here every day. Somehow we got through but there was a lot of stress,” Neuville sighed.
“Before the last stage, we knew it was the roughest stage of the rally, and basically it was destroyed. When we saw Sebastian on the side of the road working on the car, we understood that it was not over yet, and we had to reduce even a bit more the speed, try to get just through and take the points, because they are very valuable at the moment.”
Neuville only set three fastest times in Greece, but without a doubt, the Belgian drove the entire rally smartly. His patience was richly rewarded in the end.
“Since the recce, it was clear that it’s not the fastest who’s going to win the rally. That’s for sure. but also not the slowest. You just need to have a little bit of luck. It was still the most important thing how to manage when you need to push when you can not,” Neuville explained.
“I think this weekend we did it very well. I felt I was doing well and I was comfortable. That´s why I wasn’t so stressed and very calm all weekend, because I felt like I had the tools to do it.”
Neuville’s first championship title is now within reach. For Tänak or Ogier to close the over 30-point gap, Neuville would need to essentially suffer a total collapse.
“We increased once more a little bit our chances of winning the first championship. However we need to be concentrated, keep calm and follow our objectives, which are different for every rally. I think from now on obviously, it’s crucial to finish every rally and take some points,” Neuville summarised.
“Like I said before we need to manage our gap now. We have to stay focussed and calm and do like we did here. We clearly weren’t the fastest, but we were always amongst the fastest. At the end, we secure a victory.”
The WRC season continues at the end of September in Chile, followed by rallies in Central Europe and Japan.
