Three days, 20 special stages and 62 crews covered the fourth edition of the Croatia Rally. Although Sebastian Ogier was third in the first two days of the rally, and Thierry Neuville and Elfyn Evans were completely tied at one point, in the fight for first place both drivers flew off the track and the victory went to the now two-time winner in Croatia, Ogier, with 9,7 seconds lead. Evans finished in second place, and Neuville in third.
Also, this is Toyota's fourth consecutive victory in Croatia, Ogier's jubilee hundredth podium and the 59th victory in his career. „Nice numbers, happy with that for sure. It’s a tough weekend, we knew coming here start position will be an issue, we never gave up with pressure as we could. So many moments, so many moments I never had in my life I guess in one rally but most importantly we bring it home with a win so thank you team that feels good. For sure it’s huge numbers, who would have thought that 15 years ago? So I enjoy every moment, I enjoy every opportunity I have to drive these cars and nice to see we still have some speed“, said Ogier after last special stage.
„It is what it is. I mean we had great few days but unfortunately today didn’t go so well. At the end we take important points, it should be 19 points from the weekend so it’s not too bad but we would have preferred to push a bit harder in the Powerstage but those cars without the rear wing, it’s undriveable“, said Neuville.
Nikolay Gryazin and co-driver Konstantin Aleksandrov in Citroën C3 Rally2 won the WRC2 category, which is also their fourth victory in Croatia. „It feels really nice, especially with all the work which we done before, during the event and all the nervous which we had during the event. Thank you for the team it’s a big effort for them, they never slow me down, they just keep me up and keep me pushing – especially for the co-driver because this kind of stages to read this fast you need to have the skills“, said Gryazin.
Romet Jürgenson and Siim Oja were the fastest in the JWRC category in a Ford Fiesta Rally3 with a 2:35.1s lead, followed by Taylor Gill and Daniel Brkić in the same car in the second place. Croatian duo Viliam Prodan and Marko Stiperski achieved 28th place in the overall ranking,
The last four special stages ran through Kumrovec and Trakošćan - Vrbno, that is, through two counties - Varaždinska and Krapinsko-zagorska.
