Two rear punctures can end a rally, but they don’t have to end a story. With the WRC’s Baltic double-header opening in Tartu this week, Thierry Neuville and Hyundai are arriving at Rally Estonia still carrying the sting of a Greek near-miss — and a genuine chance to make Toyota’s five-car Rally1 entry look a lot less comfortable than it appears on paper.
Neuville led the Acropolis Rally Greece from Friday morning through to Sunday’s final leg, only for two rear punctures on the repeat of the Aghii Theodori test to cost him 53.5 seconds and hand victory to Sebastien Ogier by 58.3s, according to RACER’s report from the event. “I am between disappointment and somehow a little bit of joy right now, because the car is performing well and we feel comfortable in it,” Neuville said afterwards. “We don’t know what would have happened without the puncture. But that’s rallying.” For a Hyundai camp that has now watched Toyota win eight of the season’s first eight rounds between its factory and satellite entries, that near-miss still stings going into Estonia.
Yet Rally Estonia is not just Toyota’s stage to lose.
Neuville And Lappi Give Hyundai A Genuine Shot
Hyundai’s official entry, confirmed via WRC.com, pairs Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe with Adrien Fourmaux and Alexandre Coria, while Esapekka Lappi returns to the third i20 N Rally1 alongside Enni Mälkönen for his first high-speed gravel outing since Kenya. It’s a meaningful boost: Lappi finished third in Estonia in 2023, and Neuville’s own record on the event’s fast gravel has been better than his reputation on similar surfaces elsewhere suggests, with podiums in 2021 and 2023 and third as recently as 2025. Fourmaux, still chasing a maiden WRC win after leading in Greece before tyre trouble intervened, adds a third genuine podium threat to Hyundai’s line-up.
M-Sport’s Baltic Storyline Runs Deeper Than One Driver
M-Sport Ford arrive with their own momentum. “After a tough Rally Greece and the conditions we saw there, Estonia will be a different challenge, and I’m looking forward to seeing how our drivers can continue to build on the performances they showed last month,” team principal Richard Millener said in the squad’s official Estonia preview. Josh McErlean, who took a career-best fourth in Greece, called the result “a solid platform to build from.” Mārtiņš Sesks gets to treat Estonia as close to a home round — “we’re hoping to see a lot of Latvian fans,” he said — while Jon Armstrong takes on Estonia’s speeds in a Rally1 car for the first time after two prior visits in junior categories. All three finished inside the top eight in Greece, and M-Sport’s Acropolis form suggests that run wasn’t a one-off.
None of which changes the maths: Toyota lead the manufacturers’ standings by 140 points after eight rounds, and fielding all five of its full-season drivers in Estonia is exactly the kind of Rally1 depth that turns a fast, unforgiving gravel event into a rout. But rallying has a habit of punishing comfort. Neuville proved in Greece that Hyundai’s pace is real even when the result isn’t, and a Baltic weekend that rewards precision over raw car advantage is about as good a chance as either chasing manufacturer will get to make Evans, Katsuta and Ogier work for it.
