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Hyundai's Thierry Neuville ends drought with WRC Rally Italy win

Thierry Neuville ended a 22-month wait for his second World Rally Championship victory and gave Hyundai its second triumph in three events on Rally Italy

Neuville spent the weekend in a lead battle with Volkswagen's Jari-Matti Latvala.

They benefited from running eighth and sixth respectively in the start order thanks to their messy seasons so far leaving them trailing in the championship, and swapped places repeatedly on Friday.

Neuville began to make a break by the end of the first full day, before Latvala came back at him on Saturday morning and reduced what had been an 11-second lead to just under three.

But the Hyundai fared better on the second runs through stages, where cleaner conditions meant its rear grip deficit to the VW was less costly.

Neuville escaped from Latvala on Saturday's afternoon loop and by Sunday morning the Finn was conceding defeat and settling for second.

The final gap between them was 24.8s as Neuville and co-driver Nicolas Gilsoul finally followed up their Germany 2014 win.

The weekend will do little to change the polarised opinions over the running order rules.

Championship leader Sebastien Ogier hung on with the frontrunners initially before becoming an increasingly distant third as being first on the road hurt him.

His podium position looked under threat from Mads Ostberg and Andreas Mikkelsen during Saturday before both damaged their cars on rocks.

Ostberg's broken driveshaft led to engine problems that sidelined his M-Sport Ford, but Mikkelsen's VW got back out for Sunday after suspension repairs and finished 12th.

Ogier still maximised his possible score by winning the powerstage, despite having to reverse briefly when he struggled to get around a heavily-rutted hairpin.

Hyundai's last rally winner Hayden Paddon suffered another Friday crash, this time while only running ninth, but Dani Sordo gave the team two cars in the top four with a distant fourth place.

The squad's junior driver Kevin Abbring punctuated a weekend of mechanical problems in the 2015-spec car with his first WRC stage win on Saturday morning and a strong second place on the powerstage.

M-Sport's much-maligned Eric Camilli also set a maiden fastest time at WRC level on a breakthrough weekend in which he recovered from Friday transmission dramas that left him with two-wheel-drive temporarily to finish sixth.

Camilli was closing on Ott Tanak's fifth for a while before the Estonian cemented a result that equalled DMACK's best of 2016 so far.

Teemu Suninen got his WRC2 ORECA Skoda among the WRC runners on Friday and ultimately emerged with eighth overall and class victory at the end of a wild weekend in which all the category frontrunners had dramas.

LEADING FINISHERS AFTER SS19:

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LEADING POWERSTAGE TIMES:

Pos Driver Team Car Gap
1 Sebastien Ogier, J.Ingrassia Volkswagen Motorsport Volkswagen 4m50.1s
2 Kevin Abbring, S.Marshall Hyundai Motorsport N Hyundai 0.6s
3 Jari-Matti Latvala, M.Anttila Volkswagen Motorsport Volkswagen 1.1s
4 Ott Tanak, R.Molder DMACK World Rally Team Ford 1.2s
5 Thierry Neuville, N.Gilsoul Hyundai Motorsport N Hyundai 2.0s

CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS

Pos Driver Points
1 Sebastien Ogier 132
2 Dani Sordo 68
3 Andreas Mikkelsen 67
4 Mads Ostberg 58
5 Hayden Paddon 57
6 Jari-Matti Latvala 56
7 Thierry Neuville 48
8 Ott Tanak 34
9 Kris Meeke 26
10 Eric Camilli 22
11 Henning Solberg 14
12 Stephane Lefebvre 10
13 Martin Prokop 10
14 Teemu Suninen 7
15 Marcos Ligato 6
16 Elfyn Evans 6
17 Lorenzo Bertelli 4
18 Craig Breen 4
19 Pontus Tidemand 2
20 Esapekka Lappi 2
21 Jan Kopecky 2
22 Nicolas Fuchs 2
23 Kevin Abbring 2
24 Armin Kremer 1
25 Valeriy Gorban 1
26 Karl Kruuda 1

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