WRC
Neuville: Sweden podium a step forward after Monte struggles
Defending WRC champion Thierry Neuville says he was happy to be “in the game” after securing his first podium of the season at Rally Sweden earlier this month.
The Belgian bounced back from a challenging Rallye Monte-Carlo to finish third in Umeå, collecting 20 crucial points as Toyota duo Elfyn Evans and Takamoto Katsuta battled for victory. But while pleased with the result, Neuville admitted that fully understanding Hyundai’s 2025-specification i20 N Rally1 remains a work in progress.
“We are happy to be on the podium, but nevertheless we are disappointed that we weren’t able to score the big points,” Neuville reflected. “We were still struggling [on Sunday] with the balance and tyre degradation. The feeling wasn’t there 100% even though we were improving – and it seems it has been better for our competitors than for us."
Despite those challenges, Neuville took encouragement from the car’s debut performance and the unpredictable nature of Sweden’s snow-covered roads.
“Our first event in the upgraded car felt good; overall the performance was there,” he explained. “It’s hard to really analyse everything as we saw the variation based on road position was crazy; you could be in the middle of the group and have the best conditions at some points or have the worst.
We were in the game in Sweden and that’s what counts.
