Esapekka Lappi feels Hyundai was “tricked” in Latvia by the softer surfaces of the previous World Rally Championship round in Poland and his own preparation event in Lithuania.
For his high standards, Lappi turned in a disappointing drive on Rally Latvia. He struggled for any grip or confidence on Friday which left him languishing a minute off the lead, before sacrificing further ground to drop behind team-mate Thierry Neuville and run first on the road on Saturday.
From there, the Finn’s weekend was always going to remain difficult, but changes to his i20 N Rally1’s setup dramatically improved the feeling – even if he didn’t manage to make any meaningful progress up the leaderboard before eventually retiring after the final stage with an engine problem.
Reflecting on where his weekend went awry, Lappi reckoned Hyundai made a setup mistake for the first day – misled by the sandier surface of Poland which didn’t translate to the Latvian stages.
“Well, definitely we had completely wrong settings for Friday,” Lappi told DirtFish.
Lappi struggled on Friday despite good position in road order
“I think all of our cars were a bit wrong. OK, Thierry needs to open the roads on Friday, but Ott was in much better form yesterday [Saturday] than what it was on Friday.
“And all of us were, I think. So we were tricked by Poland and my preparation rally with more sandy surface, in my opinion. And these setups, what we had, didn’t really work in here.”
Ott Tänak confirmed to DirtFish on Saturday that he too found an improved setup, although in relation to Lappi he said “we went in different directions” but he was “also more happy today than I was yesterday”.
He added: “We were chasing some precision and we could find it, so it was positive.”
Neuville, however, doesn’t agree that Hyundai got it wrong.
“I didn’t feel like the setup was wrong,” Neuville told DirtFish. “I was quite happy with the car in general.
“Everybody started with what was to his own liking and what he thought was the fastest. Like we said before the rally, if you get it wrong for a whole day without service, you have to stick with it.
“We did some changes, we tried some things yesterday [Saturday] because there was the opportunity for us [with little to gain on the leaderboard].”
Hyundai team principal Cyril Abiteboul meanwhile labeled Lappi’s weekend “in general” as “frustrating”, believing that’s “very much a shared responsibility between EP and the team”.
Hyundai team were left scratching heads on Friday, but are working with Lappi to improve performance
But he suggested Hyundai needs to take more responsibility in making sure its part-time drivers are better prepared for when they step back into the WRC.
Abiteboul told DirtFish: “First and foremost, I think the setups were not optimal. And we could see actually the big improvement between Friday and Saturday. Confidence built up massively. So that’s good because that’s probably the positive takeaway.”
Hyundai technical director François-Xavier Demaison agreed with Abiteboul, admitting the team didn’t actually “expect a huge performance” from Lappi as instead the focus is on next weekend’s Rally Finland.
“His last rally was Kenya,” Demaison told DirtFish. “He just did a small rally last weekend with 100km, not really the best preparation for a fast rally like this one.
“The rally was not really representative to this one, so we know that this rally was a sort of preparation for Finland for him. We did not expect a huge performance from him.”
