Last year, Neuville finally realised his long-pursued dream by winning the first world rally championship title of his career. However, defending the title has proven to be a more challenging task than expected for the Belgian.
Neuville’s season so far has, in a word, been difficult. And he’s well aware of it himself.
“I always try to attack. But yeah, we definitely need to get the momentum turned around and just have better chances of scoring good points,” Neuville said bluntly ahead of Rally Estonia.
“However, I know that when things start going our way again, the speed is there. The car is also reasonably good, so I’m not too worried, but we just need to, yeah, get that momentum back and find the same rhythm we had last year,” Neuville continued.
Neuville has made mistakes throughout the season, but there has also been a fair share of bad luck. He’s even calculated that he’s already broken his personal record for the number of punctures.
“There were good opportunities for us, but obviously in Sardinia, we missed it. In Greece, we got hit by a couple of punctures in a row, so those were very important points lost. So overall, yeah, not a satisfying start to the season,” Neuville admitted.
Ahead of Rally Estonia, Neuville is only fifth in the drivers’ standings and is already 54 points behind the championship leader, Toyota’s Elfyn Evans.
“Nothing is over. Mathematically, we still have our chances. I think we lost 40 points over two events, so it’s all still quite open, but we are in the worst position to fight for the championship,” Neuville said frankly.
Estonia is one of the fastest events in the world championship calendar. Neuville likes the rally, but doesn’t quite feel at home on the narrow gravel roads.
“I enjoy driving here, but it’s really where you need to be very, very committed—taking a bit of a risk as well to find that little second at the end of the stage. So it’s not what I enjoy the most,” Neuville said.
“However, the roads are beautiful and proper rally stages. But yeah, let’s see. We finished second here last year, and we finished second in Finland. So if we have a similar approach, we can get a good result,” Neuville predicted.
