Toyota’s Thursday pace at Rally Saudi Arabia was compromised by an overly conservative approach – as well as running first on the road – according to technical director Tom Fowler.
While Sami Pajari is an overnight second, just six seconds off leader Adrien Fourmaux, Toyota’s three world championship challengers sit at the other end of the top 10, with Sébastien Ogier seventh, Kalle Rovanperä eighth and series leader Elfyn Evans ninth.
Fowler told DirtFish: “Having one-two-three cars first on the road is a complete disaster, but I think we have to be fair and say also that I’m not sure we’ve got the best level of performance in our cars today. To blame it all on road cleaning is not really fair.”
Expanding on that performance aspect, Fowler pointed to the positive championship positions ironically being part of the issue.
He added: “With the pressure that’s on all the drivers to perform against each other inside the team, as well on the engineering side in terms of what we’re prepared to do for the car set-up and spec-wise, our main priority has been that those three guys can fight each other without any risk. I think that’s brought a level of conservatism from the drivers and from the engineering, which has made part of the difference – on top of the road cleaning.”
Road cleaning, and lack of vision, compromised Evans says Fowler
Fowler also pointed out that road cleaning wasn’t the only issue facing Evans today.
“For Elfyn, it was also an element of visibility,” he said. “We see from Dakar that opening the road is a disadvantage – even if you don’t drive exactly on the same line, [following a car] gives you an idea about where the inside of the corner is when you’re in the more open areas and you see the distinct lines from the previous car. That can give you a way to prepare your line, sometimes multiple corners in advance.
“Séb’s had Elfyn’s braking points and his lines to say ‘OK, I’m going to go a little bit more than him, I’m going to go a little bit later than him, I’m going to go a bit straighter than him’.”
Answering the question of how to approach Friday in a less conservative fashion, Fowler said: “I know the engineers are very motivated to try to make a bit of a better showing from Toyota – we definitely don’t want to walk away from here and say ‘We were first on the road…’ and then all the excuses.
“We want to try to fight to improve the set-up because we’ve got to think about next year, when we might come here in a different situation. We might come here in a fight with a Hyundai or in a fight with another driver where we have to have ultimate performance.
“I would say we’re working on suspension and differential set-up. For the engine, we’re in the last rally of a 14-rally season where we were allowed two engines per car. So I think the engine is the engine and that’s on the maximum that we can do for the mileage it’s at.”
