Neuville leads the WRC by a six-point margin over Toyota’s Elfyn Evans, with three rounds completed. Neuville is set to start the Croatian rally from the best possible starting position, as he will be the first car to drive through the tarmac stages on Friday.
The Croatian WRC round has been run three times before, and each time a Toyota driver has celebrated the rally victory. Neuville wants to change this pattern.
“Sure, I want to fight for the win. But again, a good result for me will be to have more points than Elfyn and Ott (Tänak).”
“If it’s a victory, it’s even better. But if it’s a victory and I have fewer points than the others, it’s not nice,” the Belgian added.
The renewed point system in the World Rally Championship allows that the overall winner of the competition does not necessarily collect the most points from the race. This scenario already occurred in the second round of the season in Sweden, where Esapekka Lappi finished first but received fewer points than the runner-up, Elfyn Evans.
Last year, Neuville led the Croatia Rally for a long time before he had to retire due to a crash. According to Neuville, Hyundai’s Rally1 car was not perfect in Croatia last year, although it was fast.
At the same time, Neuville gave a strong assessment of the rival team, Toyota.
“I think this year we’re going to be better, but we have to see how strong Toyota is. They have always been very strong over here, on tricky, demanding tarmac stages. And they have won every year,” Neuville reminded.
“I feel good in the car for sure. And I think we have improved it. But is it going to be good enough? We will find out.”
