Neuville has had a strong performance so far in Central European Rally, leading the competition by 6.4 seconds ahead of Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier.
Friday was a long and challenging day, with the risk of making a mistake constantly looming. However, Neuville remained flawless, and his position heading into Saturday is excellent.
“Everybody could see my smile at the end of the last stage today. I was just happy to have had a good day, to finish the day well, and probably in the most tricky and challenging conditions of the weekend in the Czech stages with the weather and the fog we had this morning. So, I’m pretty happy with how it went today and the final result,” Neuville said at the end of the day.
But Neuville’s rally could have taken a completely different turn from the very start. The Belgian damaged the front end of his car after hitting a barrier on Thursday’s first special stage.
“First of all, I wasn’t aware we couldn’t change aerodynamic parts in the remote service today. So I wasn’t that worried when hitting the barrier. But then I understood that we might have a disadvantage without a front wing, but in the end, the car was working well,” Neuville revealed.
Tomorrow, Saturday, presents perhaps the biggest day of Neuville’s career so far. He approaches it with confidence.
“The confidence was there today. So that’s the positive thing we’ll take into tomorrow. But it’s a different kind of profile, different types of stages and surfaces. So there might be some work to do on the car as well, to adapt perfectly to those conditions,” Neuville predicted.
“We are in the fight anyhow, it’s super close. And we have to keep our rhythm. As long as the gaps aren’t bigger, we need to continue driving as well as we can,” Neuville added.
