Hyundai has failed in an attempt to protest the notional times handed out for stage one of Rally Chile, after adjustments at the end of Friday’s action demoted Ott Tänak from first to second place.
The opening stage of the rally had been red flagged after the first three cars – Thierry Neuville, Sébastien Ogier and Tänak – had completed the stage, with the rest of the field assigned times after driving through in road mode.
After the initial allocated times had been assigned based on Neuville’s stage time – the slowest of the three drivers – they were then altered once the second pass of the Pulperia test was completed. Toyota sporting director Kaj Lindström had contacted the clerk of the course after stage four to request amendments to Evans’ time on SS1.
Those alterations, which were influenced by the times drivers had set on stage four, meant Elfyn Evans was handed 3.4s back by the clerk of the course for stage one, putting Evans into the overnight lead of the rally and dropping Tänak to second, three seconds adrift of first place.
Hyundai filed a protest against the manner in which stage one notional times had been calculated, but this was rejected by the Rally Chile stewards, with the original clerk of the course decision upheld.
According to the stewards report, Hyundai considered the calculation method used by officials to be made “objectively” when it should have been considered “subjectively” and had argued that “the ideal principle for allocating notional times should be based on the fastest stage time achieved by the crew to complete SS1 (Ogier) rather than the slowest time achieved by the crew to complete SS1 (Neuville).”
But this request was rejected by stewards, though they had acknowledged that implementing notional times in the requested manner would have been permissible.
The stewards decision read: “The Stewards note that the Protester’s proposed method for calculating the notional times for the cars affected on SS1 as set out in their Protest could be adopted, but consider that this is only one method for calculating the notional times.
“All parties [Hyundai and Toyota] accepted that there is no one method for determining notional times for stopped or interrupted stages. There are multiple methods adopted and the attendees agreed that the different methods could lead to different outcomes, depending on which method was adopted. The key is consistency in approach to ensure the fairest determination that benefits a larger majority rather than a minority.
“The task of allocating notional times in these circumstances calls for judgment of probabilities of uncertain facts that may or may not have happened. There is a myriad of reasons why a proposed notional time may have never occurred. Had the stage not been stopped or interrupted, the actual time achieved by a car may have been slower or faster.
“The requirement of the Clerk of the Course to be fair in determining the notional time to be allocated means that the Clerk of the Course must be fair in an objective way and without regard to the circumstances of any specific car, as that would call for subjective facts to be assumed and there would always be a competitor suggesting that their allocated time was unfair to them.”
Ultimately the method used by the clerk of the course to determine notional times for Evans was determined to be “fair and reasonable” by the event stewards, who dismissed Hyundai’s protest as it had “failed to establish that the notional times allocated by the Clerk of the Course to the affected cars by CoC Notification No. 2 was unfair in an objective way.”
Timo Rautiainen, two-time World Rally champion co-driver and FIA Sporting Delegate, spoke on behalf of the clerk of the course during the hearing.
“The FIA Sporting Delegate stated that the principle usually adopted within the WRC to allocate notional times has been to consider the time achieved for the stage by the slowest car in the class instead of the fastest car,” read the stewards’ decision. “He also explained that there are other methods that could be used to calculate and establish a fair allocation of notional times based on different criteria.”
After Lindström had requested a revised time for Evans, the Toyota driver and his team-mate Sami Pajari, plus M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux, all received revised teams for stage four, after the clerk of the course had originally opted not to make any revisions.
The stewards decision continued: “After SS4, the Clerk of the Course determined that only Car No. 33 had improved its time on SS4 and as such decided not to consider the stage time of SS4 for allocation purposes. However, after receiving a request from the Concerned Party to reconsider the notional time allocated in COC Notification No. 1, the Clerk of the Course reviewed the stage times achieved on SS4 and issued COC Notification No. 2 to reallocate stage times for Cars 33, 16, and 5 accordingly.”
Rautiainen defended the notional times handed out: “The FIA Sporting Delegate stated that they viewed the allocation of notional times for SS1 to be in line with the established procedure. He acknowledged that the procedure of allocating notional times is not an exact science and opens the door to alternative interpretations, with a possibility that each different party views fairness differently.”
