Hyundai technical director has indicated the rough conditions on Rally Portugal’s Amarante test, combined with Ott Tänak’s need to push full speed to keep Sébastien Ogier at bay, as the contributing factors to a power steering failure that curtailed Tänak’s bid for victory.
Halfway through the Amarante stage Tänak’s power steering suddenly failed, leaving him struggling to navigate to the finish line; co-driver Martin Järveoja even took over gear-shifting duties to lighten Tänak’s load.
Tänak lost over 40s across two stages which demoted him to third place, 8.5s adrift of Kalle Rovanperä in second.
While evident from onboard footage at the time of the incident that his power steering has failed, Hyundai technical director François-Xavier Demaison has identified the factors which led to Tänak’s steering trouble.
“It’s a broken steering rack and the casing is just split,” Demaison told DirtFish. “A piece of aluminium is missing from the rack.”
Demaison went on to explain that a hydraulic blockage was caused by “an impact on the wheel, that’s for sure.”
We are in a position where we have to close the gap, so we need to push and this can happen when you are in this situation.François-Xavier Demaison
Other drivers had highlighted how many loose stones were in the ruts on both the Cabeceiras de Basto and Amarante stages, with Ogier having expressed to his engineer that “anything can happen in these conditions” prior to the second pass of Amarante.
It was a sentiment echoed by Demaison: “We all saw that there was these two [Tänak and Ogier] driving on the track really fast and there are many stones in the ruts, so you know there is no other choice than just hoping that they will be lucky and there will not be a stone somewhere which would create this overpressure.”
Despite losing what was increasingly looking to be a likely victory, Demaison indicated he had no regrets over Tänak’s approach of pushing on regardless, suggesting it was essential they take such risks if Hyundai is to catch Toyota in either championship race.
“We are in a position where we have to close the gap, so we need to push and this can happen when you are in this situation,” he said.
Hyundai had already lost Adrien Fourmaux to suspension failure on the Friday of Rally Portugal, when he'd been battling Tänak for the lead
“If you remember last year in Greece we didn’t have to push, Toyota had to push to close the gap and we did 1-2-3. Things change very quickly depending on the condition of where you are. Unfortunately we have to close this gap because we are far away in both championships.”
Hyundai are now third and fourth in the standings with Sunday’s six stages remaining; Thierry Neuville is 8.5s behind Tänak, while Fourmaux will be fully focused on Sunday points after his Friday retirement with broken suspension.
