Esapekka Lappi backed up
Neuville’s Rallye Monte-Carlo victory with a fast and controlled drive to take
an i20 N Rally1 Hybrid to the top step of the podium for the second time this
year. Hyundai has never won the first two rounds of the championship before and
it already matches their win count for the entire 2023.
The Swedish success keeps
Neuville and Hyundai at the top of the tables heading into round three in
Kenya.
While Neuville admitted his own
performance was impacted by running first on the road in some of the snowiest
conditions in recent history, the Belgian was delighted with the team’s effort.
He said: “It is good to get
another victory for the team. It’s important even if the performance wasn’t the
greatest, especially on the first passes.
“However, two victories in three
weeks is great motivation for us – we only had two wins in the 2023 season. We
had to get through without any mistakes, and I think we might have been the
only crew who didn’t have any. We had to accept the situation of Friday and we
hoped for a better Saturday, where we managed to climb up the rankings. I’m
happy to be at the end with decent points.
“My goal was to make a podium.
OK, I wasn’t able to do that, but we didn’t lose so many points to Elfyn
[Evans] and we took points against Ott [Tänak], so for us that was good.”
Finland
Italy
Hungary