Neuville had closed to within 10.5s of Evans and looked set to offer the Toyota driver stern challenge for victory before his rally unravelled on stage six (Inabu Dam, 19.38km).
The Belgian had survived horrendous wet conditions across the morning stages before taking 15s out of Evans on stage five. However a compression in the road at the first corner of stage six resulted in a heavy impact with trees, which ended hopes of denying Toyota a victory on home soil for the second year in succession.
