NEW ASPHALT TYRES HELP TANAK TO VICTORY AT THE CER

There was a strong first appearance of the P Zero Pirelli tyres developed for Rally1 cars, while the WRC1 and WRC2 world titles will have to wait until the final round to be decided. That sums up the Central European Rally, which finished with results that will delay the coronation of the season’s champions until Rally Japan, the final round of the world championship.

Victory in this rally held in three nations went to Hyundai’s Ott Tanak, who managed to profit from the misfortunes of his direct opponents: team-mate Thierry Neuville, who finished in third place and Toyota’s Sébastien Ogier, who held second until the penultimate stage before handing the place to Elfyn Evans.

The Belgian driver remains the leader of the drivers’ classification, but the Estonian is chasing him 25 points behind. This is enough to keep the title battle between the two Hyundais mathematically open until the final rally. There is the same points gap in the constructors’ championship between leaders Hyundai and Toyota.

In WRC2 Nikolay Gryazin came out on top, while Yohan Rossel saw his title hopes vanish at the CER. The only remaining contenders are Oliver Solberg and Sam Pajari, who could recover the gap in Japan – but only by winning or coming second.

On Super Sunday victory went to Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta.

The overall star of the show, in almost all the special stages – including Sunday’s completely dry conditions – was the evolution of the soft compound of the P Zero RA which made its season’s debut on the slippery and quick roads of the Czech Republic, Austria and Germany.

Given the weather conditions, which were less cold and damp than expected – but not enough to lead to a wider use of the hard option (which was itself making its first appearance of the year) the teams made similar choices throughout the weekend. The P Zero RA HB tyres were a popular choice for Super Sunday (3 for the Toyota drivers as opposed to two soft, 2 for Jourdan Serderidis, as many as 5 for Andreas Mikkelsen, while Tanak, Neuville, Adrien Fourmaux and Gregoire Munster were limited to 1). But on the other days it was more marginal (on Thursday there were one each for Mikkelsen and Fourmaux and one on Saturday morning by the Toyota teams). The wet-weather Cinturato remained all but unused by the Rally1 cars (only Serderidis used two) while they did appear on the Rally2 cars in some special stages.

PIRELLI QUOTETerenzio Testoni, Rally Activity Manager: “We are very satisfied with the new asphalt specifications that we brought to this rally, which proved treacherous because of the wide-ranging and changing surface conditions. The drivers said our soft compound P Zero tyres performed with flying colours as they displayed superior endurance to what we expected, while they were also robust and versatile on surfaces that were drier than anticipated. Those were the targets we had set ourselves as we developed the previous P Zero tyres – which were already greatly appreciated by everyone. To those asking why we would bring out a new tyre with just two rallies left, my answer is that continuous development is our philosophy and what we develop for the WRC will bring advantages to other championships and champions. Now I look forward to the last rally of the season with great interest: both as a technician – to gather more data on the asphalt tyres – and as a fan, like everyone, to watch how this season will finish after a year of so many surprises.”

WOMEN’S PROGRAMMEThere were world championship rally debuts for Lyssia Baudet, Suvi Jyrkiäinen and Claire Schönborn, the three young drivers selected by the Women’s programme launched by the WRC promoters and backed by Pirelli to support and accelerate the careers of talented female rally drivers. For Schönborn, who came out on top of the three at the CER, it will open the doors to JWRC 2025.

See below for a graphic summary of the Central European Rally.