Neuville forced to retire from day one

Thierry Neuville has been forced to retire from the Cyprus Rally, the final round of the 2011 Intercontinental Rally Challenge season, due to an alternator failure.

Neuville, at the wheel of a Team Peugeot Belgium-Luxembourg 207 Super 2000, had led after three stages but hit trouble on stage four when he suffered a right-rear puncture.

After restarting the Belgian experienced a loss of power, which was traced to an alternator fault shortly after the stage finish.

“We didn’t want to break the engine so the best solution is to stop,” said Neuville. “We were really going in the right rhythm, pushing hard without making mistakes. We’ve been lucky sometimes this season but now we have been unlucky. We continue tomorrow.”