Neuville: “The Tour de Corsica will still be difficult for us”

Thierry Neuville does not have high hopes of winning the Tour de Corse this weekend. The Belgian is focused on the fight for the title against Ott Tänak (Toyota) and Sébastien Ogier (Citroën) in 3rd place in the Championship, ten points behind the Estonian leader.

Hyundai WRT peine à renouer avec le succès. Sa dernière victoire remonte au Rally of Sardinia (Italy) 2018 with a first place won by the vice-champion. The latter keeps measured objectives for the Tour de Corse, an event which he won in 2011 on a Peugeot 207 S2000 when the Rallye des 10000 Virages was run in ERC before winning two years ago on the i20 WRC.

“I think the Tour is going to be another difficult round for us, confirms Thierry Neuville in AUTOweekly. We saw it last year with the arrival of Sébastien Loeb on the Citroën, he was immediately in the game and the Monte-Carlo proved that the C3 works very well on tarmac. They are going to be very fast, the Toyota too. »

“For our part, we have progressed as we were able to show during the Monte-Carlo, specifies the Belgian. However, the conditions will be different on the island with clean asphalt which offers plenty of grip. It's not the best terrain for us. The tactic will be to try to finish in front of my rivals. On the podium, that would be good. If I don't succeed, we will have to save as many points as possible. It is important to finish closest to them, while not having any competitors interspersed. »

Thierry Neuville prefers to concentrate on the dirt rounds which will follow on the calendar and where he will be able to have a good position on the road... If, however, he does not get ahead of his rivals in the championship at the end of the first asphalt round of the season.

Discover the decryption on Thierry Neuville and Hyundai up against the wall in AUTO issue 2209hebdo, available now in digital version on all platforms, and on newsstands this Wednesday.