Tanak seals victory to join WRC title fight with Neuville, Ogier

Full WRC Rallye Deutschland results

Ott Tanak has claimed back-to-back World Rally Championship wins for the first time in his career to ignite his title fight with leader Thierry Neuville in second place on a dramatic final day in Germany.

The Toyota Gazoo Racing driver produced a near-flawless event at Rallye Deutschland, just missing out on the Power Stage victory to Sebastien Ogier by one-tenth of a second, to continue to close in on the leading championship duo.

Tanak’s win, coupled with second place on the final stage, sees him move to 13 points behind defending WRC champion while cutting the gap to Neuville to 36 points who continues to lead the drivers’ standings for Hyundai.

Neuville profited from a series of high-profile retirements to jump up to second on the final day, with teammate Dani Sordo dropping out of a provisional second place and Jari-Matti Latvala also exiting from a potential podium place, to see Toyota’s Esapekka Lappi grabbing the final rostrum spot for his best career result on asphalt.

Ogier recovered from a nightmare tyre puncture on SS13 to take fourth place for M-Sport Ford plus the Power Stage win ahead of teammate Teeum Suninen who rounded out the top five.

Hyundai’s Andreas Mikkelsen secured a promoted sixth place with Craig Breen in seventh as the lead Citroen driver.

Privateer local star Marijan Griebel grabbed WRC points in eighth place, while WRC2 class winner Jan Kopecky and Kalle Rovanpera (both Skoda) completed the points places.

It was a frustrating round for Elfyn Evans who spun and picked up damage on SS10 which dropped him outside of the points before re-joining the action only to spin on the Power Stage to miss out on the final points for M-Sport Ford.

While the opening three days of Rallye Deutschland saw a minor rate of attrition the notoriously tricky asphalt event struck on the opening stage of Sunday morning with three premier class challengers dropping out.

Sordo, who started SS16 in second place, ran off course in his Hyundai and picked up heavy damage running through a vineyard. With an overheating engine and a shattered windscreen he was forced to stop at the end of the stage.

Fellow provisional podium holder Latvala also suffered a cruel end to the Germany event when a hydraulics failure with his Toyota Gazoo Racing Yaris car saw him stop on SS16.

The trio of punished top class drivers was completed by Citroen’s Mads Ostberg who crashed on SS16 having been inside the top ten.