Ott Tanak dramatically lost the lead within the Rally Japan, handing Thierry Neuville the World Rally Championship and turning the fight for the manufacturers' title towards Toyota.
Tanak began Sunday with a 38-second lead over Toyota's Elfyn Evans, which he had to keep up to maintain his WRC title hopes alive.
However, Sunday's morning opening stage (Nukata, 20.23 km) turned out to be decisive for the lead to the WRC Drivers' Championship.
Tanak was caught within the mud on the road and went off the road under control at high speed. This caused a heavy impact on his i20 N, which suffered fatal damage.
Tanak and co-driver Martin Jarveoja escaped unscathed, but retirement handed Hyundai teammate Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe the championship.
Neuville began the day by scoring two of Sunday's 12 points to secure the title.
However, Tanaka's accident means he can now not be caught even when he doesn’t finish the rally, meaning the Belgian is now the 2024 World Rally Champion, having won his maiden WRC title in dramatic fashion after ending five times in second place (2013), 2016-2019).
Neuville has led the championship since winning the primary round in Monte Carlo in January, but his title hopes were dashed this weekend. The Belgian was just six points short, but a turbo failure on Friday dropped him to fifteenth place.
On Saturday, Neuville put up an incredible fight to take seventh place and 4 helpful points, on condition that rival Tanak was leading the rally before the Estonian made a mistake on stage 17.
“Honestly, it was a surprise to me. I don't know what to say in the meanwhile, but I believe we deserve it,” said a delighted Neuville.
“It was a really demanding yr, very difficult. Obviously we had rather a lot more pressure than we wanted, especially with this last event. We knew there was a risk and we handled it. We're joyful now, we're a little bit more relaxed now so we are able to push harder for the manufacturers' title because we wish to go home with all of the trophies.”
The accident moved the fight for the manufacturers' crown towards Toyota, and Tanak lost first place after Saturday's classification and can now not have the option to fight for Sunday's points.
The drama also means Toyota's Elfyn Evans now leads the rally by 1:36.9s over teammate and eight-time world champion Sebastian Ogier, with M-Sport's Adrien Fourmaux third.
