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By: Matt Beer

Summary

Status: Stopped
And next weekend you can follow every session from Formula 1's Belgian Grand Prix at Spa plus qualifying and the race from MotoGP's British GP at Silverstone with Autosport Live too.

Thank you for your company this weekend, keep an eye on Autosport all week for Rally Germany and WRC title battle news brought to you by our colleagues at Motorsport News.
We've got live coverage of the World Endurance Championship's Silverstone round under way now here:
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Here's your final Rally Germany result:

1 Tanak
2 Neuville +39.2s
3 Lappi +1m00.9s
4 Ogier +1m34.5s
5 Suninen +2m02.9s
6 Mikkelsen +2m13.8s
7 Breen +2m39.1s
8 Griebel +10m41.2s
9 Kopecky +13m12.8s
10 Rovanpera +13m16.6s
Tanak continues to deny that he's in the title hunt. That's fine, Ott, you just keep dominating rallies and we'll give you a shout when you've set up an epic three-way championship decider with Neuville and Ogier at the last round.
And we reckon that leaves the title battle looking like this:

1 Neuville 172
2 Ogier 149
3 Tanak 138

Which means Ogier only loses two points to Neuville despite his Saturday disaster, and Tanak is now within 34 of the championship lead with four rounds to go. This is going to be good.
Tanak's final winning margin is 39.2s, with Neuville second, Lappi third and Ogier fourth.

The powerstage scorers are: 1 Ogier; 2 Tanak; 3 Lappi; 4 Breen; 5 Neuville
Tanak goes second to Ogier, just a tenth apart! He wins the rally but it's a 29-point score not a 30!
Tanak is now fastest at split two, 0.4s up on Ogier!
"It was a difficult weekend for us," Neuville admits. "I struggled a bit with the confidence and the car and the driving. But we were consistent and made no mistakes. In the end, we did the job."
There's a six-point gap between what Neuville gets for second overall and what Ogier gets for fourth. At present, Ogier is going to make most of that up on the powerstage.
Tanak is second fastest through split one, 0.6s off Ogier.
Neuville comes in fourth fastest so far. That's two powerstage bonus points to Ogier's five right now. A lot now depends on what Tanak does.
Rally leader Tanak is onto the final stage.

He declared this morning that it will be impossible for him to be fastest on the powerstage because by the time he gets there the road will be so dirty from the cars ahead.

But if anyone needs a maximum 30-point score here, it's the bloke charging into title contention...
Neuville has reached split two, where he's equal with Suninen at fourth-fastest behind Ogier, Lappi and Breen.
Amid the focus on the points, let's not forget that Lappi just took his first WRC podium on asphalt. Lovely job by Toyota's young gun, who got better and better through the weekend.

"It's a good feeling now," says Lappi. "Just a clean weekend for us, no mistakes and no drama. It brought us to third place."
So Ogier is going to be at-worst third and most likely first or second on the powerstage to add to his fourth place overall.

And if Neuville is content to take one or even no points from this stage, that's good news for the M-Sport man.
Lappi juuuust beats Breen by 0.2s to go second fastest on the powerstage so far.
It looks like Neuville is playing it cool - he's 7.5s off Ogier's pace at split one, behind Breen, Suninen and Lappi.
Lappi is second to Ogier now at split two, 0.4s ahead of Breen. Looks like he's pushing to try to take points off team-mate Tanak's title rivals. Good shout.
Here's Ogier's verdict: "We had a small issue on the diff and the car was a bit unstable. It's OK. It was not a lucky weekend for us but I tried my best all the time."
Points leader Neuville begins the stage. What are you going to do, Thierry? Sit on your 18 points for second or try to take it to Ogier on the powerstage too?
Ogier gave that everything, beautifully lairy, bits of bodywork flying. The champion will not let go of his title without a fight.
Ogier is through, that's fourth overall secured and fastest on the powerstage so far by 4.3s over Breen.
Lappi is third fastest at split one, a tenth behind Breen.
Bit of a slip for Ogier as he brakes too late for a tight corner, but he gathers it up.
Suninen has been pretty terse all weekend but he's positively perky now - having gone from "slowest in shakedown" to fifth overall with some very decent times. He's second to Breen on the powerstage for now.
Split two in for Ogier and he's fastest by 2.6s over Breen there.
Lappi needn't push as his third place is very secure, but Toyota might want him to give it a bash to deny Ogier and Neuville some bonus points and help Tanak in that title bid he keeps trying not to talk about.
The chances of Ogier taking five points here and either of his title rivals taking zero are low because we've had such high attrition.

With Latvala, Sordo and Ostberg missing, Mikkelsen chilling and Evans spinning, that doesn't leave many cars to get between the title rivals.
Ogier is living up to expectations - fastest so far at split one by 1.8s over Breen.
Suninen is still on course to slot in second fastest so far on this stage between Breen and Mikkelsen.
Mikkelsen confirms he was playing it very safe there.

"We didn't risk anything. It's important for the manufacturers' that we get the points. If you don't feel really comfortable and you then start to push, it's easy to do a mistake. It's been a tough weekend and we have a lot of homework to do."
Ogier has started the stage. Now there's a man who WILL be trying to get five points here.
Mikkelsen is 10s slower than Breen at the stage end, and 1.5s off Suninen on the splits so far. That looks like a case of Breen having a good crack at the bonus points and Mikkelsen and Suninen settling for fifth and sixth overall.
And a replay shows Mikkelsen started the stage by smacking his way through a hay bale, which won't have helped.
Mikkelsen is on the stage next but he's a full 8s slower than Breen on the splits.

The Norwegian has spent the weekend trying to totally change his driving style to get the Hyundai working for him, but it's not been very productive.

He's only 4s behind fifth-placed Suninen but don't expect him to try to chase that down.
Breen feels he was "a little bit too hesitant in the fast places" but admits he "didn't want to do what I did yesterday".
Breen beats Evans by 22.3s to go fastest so far. That's what not spinning will do for you.
As Kopecky heads for his WRC2 win, Craig Breen is onto the stage.

Until the end of Saturday, Breen was having a lovely weekend. After a run of painful rallies, he was enjoying being on the fringe of the podium battle before running wide and breaking his suspension.

He'll still salvage seventh but it could've been so much more.

Maybe a powerstage bonus point or two will help? He's started very strongly.
Skoda's Jan Kopecky had a comfortable lead over a wild battle for second until Saturday morning, when a Panzerplatte puncture dropped him back to ninth in class, 1m10s behind new class leader Eric Camilli.

Helped by an alternator failure ending M-Sport's ex-WRC driver Camilli's weekend just as he was taking control of the class, Kopecky fought back through the field.

He took the lead from his Skoda team-mate Kalle Rovanpera on the last stage of this morning's loop but it's not over yet - they're just 3.5s apart starting this one.

Fabio Andolfi is close behind too, but Rovanpera's successfully held him off here.

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