Thierry Neuville, his frustration on full display: "I feel a bit like Lewis Hamilton right now."

Thierry Neuville He is not going through the most serene period of his career. In Sweden, the 2024 world champion showed his annoyance after a complicated morning, marked by a minor off-track excursion and a significant loss of time.

Speaking to AUTOhebdo, the driver Hyundai he recounted his incident in a straightforward manner. “Extremely frustrating, clearly. We knew it was going to be another difficult morning. […] We hit a wall of snow and got a lot of snow on the windshield. And for some reason, we had a lot of fogging, so we had to pull over.” 

Beyond the simple contact with a snowbank, it was the series of problems he cited—reduced visibility, a stop during a special stage, unexpected fogging—that heavily impacted his time. A telling episode of a weekend where nothing seemed to go smoothly.

Pressed again on the comparison he had made the day before with Lewis HamiltonThe Belgian driver detailed his feelings. According to him, the difficulty lies not only in raw performance, but in the inability to identify the necessary levers to compete with the fastest drivers. “We’re in the same situation; we can’t find what it takes to go as fast as the others. And on top of that, the handling is extremely complicated. The combination of these two factors means that the results aren’t there.” 

The Belgian describes a complex equation: a car that is difficult to handle and insufficient feel for attacking with confidence. Indeed, the day before, in an interview given to DirtFishThierry Neuville had already laid the groundwork for this comparison. "I feel a bit like Lewis Hamilton right now." 

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This was not a lightly thrown-out phrase. The Hyundai driver was referring to the difficulties encountered by the Briton since the regulatory change in Formula 1 of 2022, believing they were experiencing a comparable situation in WRCThierry Neuville insists that motivation was not the issue: "The desire is still there, but right now, even with the will, it's not working. It's too complicated." 

He spoke of a struggle against a problem that is difficult to define, almost intangible, and which makes any progress laborious. Without naming a specific element, he acknowledged that the situation is more complex than a simple adjustment of settings.

The British media also pointed out that several drivers had tested the “EVO” version of the Hyundai i20 N Rally1. Thierry Neuville, however, prefers to downplay the abundance of technical feedback: "We can have many ingredients to make a good salad. We just have to choose the ones that really bring something to the recipe." A vivid way of explaining that accumulating opinions doesn't guarantee an effective solution. The issue isn't the amount of information gathered, but its relevance. The challenge now is to translate this clarity into action.

Interview conducted by Pierre Barré, in Bäck, Sweden.