Neuville surprise winner of the Tour de Corsica

Thierry Neuville (Hyundai) a signé sa troisième victoire au Tour de Corse après 2011 (en ERC) et 2017 après avoir profité de la crevaison d’Elfyn Evans (M-Sport) dans la Power Stage. C’est une désillusion pour le Gallois qui avait fait le plus dur en repoussant le Belge à plus de 11 secondes dans les Eaux de Zilia, pénultième parcours du Rally of 10000 Bends.

The Belgian thus offers the first victory to Hyundai since the 2018 Sardinia Rally and achieves his 10th success in WRC by imposing himself in front Sébastien Ogier. This is an unexpected result for Citroën which did not score a single scratch in this event, the C3 WRC being strangely suffering on the Corsican asphalt.

Elfyn Evans saves a place on the podium with a dozen seconds ahead of Dani Sordo (Hyundai) who saw his pace drop at the end of the race and who only retained the advantage over Teemu Suninen (M-Sport) only for 6 seconds in advance.

Ott Tänak (Toyota) doit se contenter de la 6e place après sa crevaison de la veille en devançant Esapekka Lappi (Citroën) et Sébastien Loeb (Hyundai). Kris Meeke (Toyota) finished 9th ahead of his teammate Jari-Matti Latvala, but the Northern Irishman won the Power Stage ahead of Ott Tänak, Teemu Suninen, Thierry Neuville and Sébastien Ogier.

Thierry Neuville takes the lead in the championship with 2 points ahead of Sébastien Ogier. Ott Tänak follows at 5 units. Hyundai takes the lead in the Manufacturers' championship with a 12-point lead over Citroën. Toyota follows at 16 points, ahead of M-Sport by 28 points.

Fabio Andolfi (Skoda) snatched victory in WRC 2 from Nikolay Gryazin (Skoda) by less than 4 seconds. Kajetan Kajetanowicz (Volkswagen) completes the category podium. Adrien fourmaux (Ford) ranks 9th ahead of Pierre-Louis Loubet (Skoda). Yoann Bonato completes the ranking which still has 12 entries in the category. Lukasz Pieniazek (Ford) only had to reach the finish line to win in WRC 2 Pro following the retirement of Kalle Rovanperä (Skoda).

Tom Kristensson won the JWRC with 4 seconds ahead of Julius Tannert who took the advantage from Dennis Radström on the last course.

The WRC will resume its rights on the weekend of April 28 with the Rally Argentina.

Discover the analysis of the Tour de Corse carried out by our special correspondent in issue 2210 of AUTOhebdo, available from Monday evening in digital version on all platforms, and from this Wednesday on newsstands.