Who, Neuville, Evans or Tänak, has “benefited” the most from the new WRC points system?

"It was once again an impressive battle between the top four in the championship. Sunday was again exciting with a lot of emotions. I know that this system feeds a lot of criticism and reflections for next year, but it creates entertainment, and sport is entertainment, so it works." These were the words of Cyril Abiteboul upon arrival of Rally from Central Europe last October. The Team Principal of Hyundai Motorsport was one of the few people to defend the new points system introduced this season in WRC. A scale criticized by certain pilots and by many fans…

Criticized for its complexity, its lack of clarity and its distribution deemed "unfair" by many, the 2024 version of the scale is not expected to survive its first season, with a new scale under consideration for 2025. However, rules being rules, the drivers had to adapt throughout the season to this new format and make the most of it depending on the situation. This 2024 scale notably rewarded the attack on Sunday and allowed drivers who had retired on Friday or Saturday to finish the rally without leaving empty-handed.

After the outcome of this championship WRC 2024, where Thierry Neuville was crowned for the first time in his career, we wanted to analyse who had best exploited this new points scale between the Belgian and his two closest pursuers, namely Elfyn Evans and Ott Tänak, and if this had really had consequences for the Drivers' Championship. Our first instinct was obviously to apply the old scale, used from 2010 to 2023, to the 2024 season. Let's remember that the old scale awarded 25 points to the winner, 18 points to the 2nd, 15 points to the 3rd, and so on up to 10th place, always with the Power Stage points (5 points for the 1st, 4 points for the 2nd, etc.).

With the old scale, Thierry Neuville would have obtained 223 points (against 242 with the 2024 scale), Elfyn Evans would have 194 points (against 210 with the 2024 scale) and Ott Tänak – who retired in Japan – would have 176 points (against 200 with the 2024 scale), which means that the Belgian would have been champion even with the scale used until 2023, with an almost similar lead (32 points with the 2024 scale, 29 points with the 2023 scale).

This also means that Ott Tänak has made the best use of the Super Sunday system in 2024, where up to 12 points are awarded on Sunday, as he has a difference of +24 points between the 2023 and 2024 scales, while Thierry Neuville has a difference of +19 points and Elfyn Evans +16 points on the same comparison.

More generally, we see that all the drivers who have completed all the rallies – or almost – have benefited from this 2024 version of the scale, while the "freelancers" like Rovanperä, Pajari, Lappi, Mikkelsen and Sordo have almost the same score with the two different scales, sometimes even to the advantage of the one used until 2023.

The excellent exploitation of the points distributed on Sunday by Ott Tänak is even more obvious if we compare it with the number of points secured on Saturday evening, after the first two or three days of racing. The Estonian scored 98 points on the Super Sundays out of the 200 units accumulated in total, or nearly half of his points in total! For his part, Thierry Neuville scored 104 points on Sundays out of his 225 points gleaned in total, or a percentage of 43,0%.

This is where Hyundai has made a difference with the Toyota since these percentages are much higher than those of Elfyn Evans (36,2% of total points scored on Sunday) and Sébastien Ogier (34,6% of points scored on Sunday). If the rallies stopped on Saturday evening, without Super Sunday, Ott Tänak would have been only 5th in the championship behind Elfyn Evans, Sébastien Ogier and Adrien fourmaux ! Conclusion: between Thierry Neuville, Elfyn Evans and Ott Tänak, it was the Estonian who "benefited" the most, by a short head, from the new points scale. And the Belgian therefore deserved this first world crown!

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