Quote Originally Posted by mknight View Post
To me it seems that Neuville is more comfortable than others in pushing when the car isn't perfect.

Works many times but relatively regularly he also crashes seemingly out of nowhere like Japan or Croatia last year or Ypres before that. Against a very reliable driver like Ogier it has not worked in title fights.

Lappi is similar in being able to push with non-optimal car, but crashes even more to the point of too often. Meeke is even more of that.

Tanak and Sordo are both "feeling sensitive" and Mikkelsen is the extreme version of that again, needing "perfect" feeling.
To me it has never been a matter of pushing or no pushing with Neuville. Plenty of times we've seen Neuville going flat out for the whole rally, like last year's Mexico, making 0 mistakes and overtaking Evans in the last stage. Other times we've seen Neuville in a comfortable position binning it and retiring.
In my opinion it's his handbrake-heavy driving style, which lately seems to be a bit less needed, that is just a more risky driving style. I can't pinpoint what's risky about it, but maybe it's easier to misjudge certain turns driving like that. I find it more plausible than Neuville "pushing when he doesn't need to".