Ott Tanak says Thierry Neuville is “not safe yet” after taking a nibble out of his Hyundai team-mate's World Rally Championship lead at Rally Chile.
The 2019 world champion outscored Neuville by five points last weekend to reduce the deficit in the title race to 29 points with two rounds of the seasons remaining in Central Europe and Japan, and 60 points on the table.
In what proved to be a difficult rally for Hyundai, Tanak managed to improve his i20 N through several tweaks across the event to lead the rally on the Friday without scoring a stage win.
The Estonian eventually finished third behind Toyota duo Kalle Rovanpera and Elfyn Evans as the Japanese brand eroded Hyundai’s manufacturers’ championship lead from 35 points to 17.
While Neuville remains the favourite to lift a maiden WRC drivers’ title, Tanak says the fight is not over.
“Obviously it is a very big gap but let’s say Thierry is not safe yet," said Tanak when asked about his championship hopes.
“We were maybe a bit lucky that Seb [Ogier] hit trouble on Friday and other than that there was nothing we could do against the Toyotas. We gave our maximum and scored everything we could.
“They [Toyota] have bounced back, but let’s see. Now we go to tarmac and we should have good road position for that. Definitely the fight is not over yet, and we need to work hard for it.”
After initially struggling in seventh after opening road on Friday, Neuville declared himself happy with his recovery to fourth, limiting the damage to his points advantage.
But the Belgian is hoping to wrap up the championship sooner rather than later to end his internal fight with Tanak and focus on helping Hyundai fend off Toyota in the manufacturers’ title fight.
“Obviously some drivers made mistakes early in the race, and from that point again our plan and strategy had to be adapted, and we mainly focussed on Ott," said Neuville.
“We have done what we needed but we need to make sure we get things [the drivers’ title] done quickly as there is still a manufacturers’ championship to fight for, and we should ensure that for Japan we can fight as we should for that title. It is important not to have an internal fight and be ready to beat Toyota.
“We lost 18 points [to Toyota], and for sure there is a fight between me and Ott which is ongoing and nobody will take the biggest risks, but we lost some important points against Toyota.
“They [Toyota] will bring many cars and will also do that in Central Europe and we need to have a good approach and strategy as a team to make sure we don’t lose the manufacturers’ championship.”
