Thierry Neuville

Thierry Neuville (born 16 June 1988 in St. Vith) is Belgian rally driver. He is currently competing in World Rally Championship. His co-driver was Nicolas Klinger from his debuts to the end of 2010. Klinger was replaced by Nicolas Gilsoul for the first 2011 IRC rally, Monte Carlo.

Neuville drove a self-entered Citroën C2 at the 2010 Junior World Rally Championship, collecting a win, a 3rd and three retirements to finish 7th in the standings. He also competed at six rounds of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge with a semi-works Peugeot 207 S2000, resulting 3rd at Ypres and 4th at Sardinia.

In 2010, Neuville competed full-time at the Intercontinental Rally Challenge, again driving a semi-works Peugeot 207 S2000. He took his first two victories in the Tour de Corse[1] and Sanremo, resulting 5th in the standings with further 2nd, 3rd and 4th race finishes.

Citroën signed Neuville for the 2012 World Rally Championship, driving all races on a Citroën DS3 WRC for the Citroën Junior Team except two for Qatar World Rally Team. The Belgian scored in five races, including a 4th at Alsace and two 5ths at Argentina and New Zealand, and finished 7th in the championship.

Neuville joined Qatar for the 2013, now driving a Ford Fiesta RS WRC. He retired for the third time in Rallye Monte-Carlo, after going off track on the third stage. He managed to get some good points in Rally Sweden, scoring a 5th place, in a surface where he is not very comfortable. Then, in Mexico, he was one of the men of the rally, getting his maiden podium finish (3rd place). Round 4, Portugal, was disappointing, since he finished out of the points, after returning to the rally in Rally 2 after retiring from 5th place. 5th place was again for Neuville, in Argentina. Then came a streak of podiums which turned Neuville into the surprise driver of the season: third place in Greece and second place in Italy, Finland, Germany and Australia.

At Rallye Deustchland, which Neuville considers his home rally, the Belgian was in second place during the second day, trailing Jari-Matti Latvala just for a few seconds. But in a surprise twist, Latvala left the road and Neuville did the same thing right after him. Thierry led the rally for a stage, but eventually, and in the second to last stage of the day, he lost the lead to Dani Sordo. The last stage of the day was canceled, so the drivers entered the final two stages separated by just 0.8 seconds. The second to last stage was won by Sordo, which left the Spaniard three seconds ahead of Neuville in the overall classification. Both gave everything in the PowerStage and Thierry eventually had a small off in the very last section of the stage, therefore losing the chance to win. He ended in second place, 53 seconds behind Sordo.

At Rallye Australia, Neuville was in third place, 25.2 seconds behind Mikko Hirvonen, before the PowerStage. With Sébastien Ogier comfortably in the lead, he needed to finish in second place overall and in the PowerStage in order to still have a mathematical chance at the title. Hirvonen punctured in the stage, allowing Thierry to finish in second overall and second in the PowerStage. After this dramatic finish, a frustrated Ogier and Neuville were the only ones still with a chance for the title, although Ogier only needed to score a single point in the remaining three rounds.