Rally Sweden – Thierry Neuville all the way to 3rd place?

The pilot Hyundai had experienced a delicate first stage on this Rally of Sweden 2023. Unconvinced by the course which he found too fast and uninteresting, he was also slowed down by his second position on the road forcing him to do a lot of sweeping. His preparation had not been optimal either with a disappointing day of testing and another completely canceled by a nasty cold. Given all these handicaps, its 6^e place Friday evening at 36s8 from Craig Breen the leader, wasn't so bad. More importantly, he was only 5s7 behind Kalle Rovanperä on whom he must focus with a view to the championship.

#WRC 🇸🇪 Day 2 ✅ P3 🎤 @thierryneuville "The main difference today has been our road position. Since we got better grip, we have been capable of showing our speed. The lack of pre-event testing probably didn't help yesterday, but we made a few set-up changes. "#HMSGOfficial pic.twitter.com/7RSNN2s64b

— Hyundai Motorsport (@HMSGOfficial) February 11, 2023

He started Saturday with the desire to come back and get closer to the podium. “ Our performance clearly demonstrated how disadvantageous our road position on Friday was., he smiled, visibly in better shape than the day before. With the experience of past years, we knew that we had to take care of our tires during the first SS. This allowed us to benefit greatly from it later. From the start, the battle with Kalle Rovanperä has been very close. We lost seven tenths on him over all 7 stages yesterday and now we have a 3s margin. »

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Consistently in the top 3, Neuville was one of the great entertainers of Saturday with 4 best times out of 7. “Our level of attack was however lower than the day before,” he noted. Because of the sweeping, we hit the walls of snow in all directions, almost getting stuck several times while we had no alert during this day even though among the fastest we had the worst position on the road. »

#WRC 🇸🇪 Midday service is 🔛

4 courses remaining today #GameOn#HMSGOfficial #RallySweden pic.twitter.com/rnUSW2ylhX

— Hyundai Motorsport (@HMSGOfficial) February 11, 2023

Looking ahead to the conclusion, the Belgian expected another big fight. “ The finale is quite long and it will be complicatedhe explained. The paths will be narrower, technical with high walls of snow and bumpy portions. You will have to be wide awake to get the podium. »

Three special stages and just over 63 km are on the crews' program for this final day of the Swedish Rally.