They weren’t words that had been pre-meditated or planned; instead a brutally honest reaction from Ott Tänak who finished over three minutes off the winner on a dry Tarmac rally last week.
“It’s probably the worst we have ever been as a team.”
As we speak, Hyundai will be continuing its autopsy of just what went wrong for it at Rally Islas Canarias, but DirtFish was able to glean a fair idea too through various interviews with the key personnel across the weekend.
This is an explainer of where Hyundai failed in Gran Canaria.
Poor preparation
From as early as Tuesday last week, when conducting recce interviews with the drivers, it became clear that preparation had not been the smoothest – at least for Tänak.
“We had quite an OK test, but maybe we didn’t end up where we hoped for,” he explained. “So we still have a bit of work to do during shakedown, but there is probably a plan in place so let’s see how it works out.”
Spoiler alert: not particularly well.
It’s often said that reading too much into shakedown isn’t wise, but in hindsight the results of the warm-up test – which was a healthy 3.9 miles – last week were telling.
Rovanperä a dominant first; Hyundai drivers not particularly happy. What was missing?
“It’s generally the balance,” Tänak told DirtFish. “In this kind of racing terms you need to have very good balance in the car to not work the tires too hard, you need some natural rotation of turning in the car, so this is something we need to chase, you know, to make the tires last.”
“It’s not going fast”
Once the rally got underway on Friday morning, there were two clear narratives: the searing pace of Rovanperä, and the absent pace of Hyundai.
On the first stage alone, the leading Hyundai (Adrien Fourmaux) lost 12.8s – and it was even worse for Thierry Neuville who had no idea what the problem was, and arrived at mid-day service 45.4s off the lead.
“Like I said to all the other journalists, I focused on my driving, I kept concentrated and tried to get through, find some improvements [but] I didn’t really find anything much better,” Neuville told DirtFish.
Hyundai immediately struggled for speed in Gran Canaria - and things didn't really improve
“I’m gonna prepare my afternoon like always. We do some changes on the car and I go again.”
What is the car not doing?
“It’s not going fast.”
Tänak confirmed the balance of the car was still the problem, but more worryingly suggested that was an inherent issue with the i20 N Rally1.
“Yeah, it’s been since the beginning with this car and somehow not able to find a way forward, so it was the same in the test and it was the same yesterday on shakedown,” he said.
“So we’ve been trying a couple of things now but still unable to iron it out yet.”
Things were at least better for Fourmaux who was up in fourth, but as Tänak pointed out he was still losing time to the Toyotas.
“For me, we miss grip globally,” Fourmaux told DirtFish. “The car is a bit nervous also, so we should calm this down a little bit, but also gain grip.
“But I saw at some time, when it’s a combination of corner left, right, right, the car is not reactive enough.
“I’m happy with my driving, pacenotes etc, but the time is not where it should be. So it’s quite frustrating for this way,” he added. “And all the three cars struggling, it’s not nice for us. And we need to find a way to improve the car for this afternoon.”
Had he spoken to his two world champion team-mates about their issues?
“To be fair, this morning I just tried to stay a bit away from them because I know they were quite angry and I prefer to stay in my wall in this time. But now I will definitely speak to them and see what we can do, what they try and see what we can do for the afternoon.”
Things don’t improve
Asked at the end of Friday’s loop what he’d changed in service, Neuville joked “we don’t have enough time to make the list now”.
A pair of fifth fastest times were the best he could manage over the repeated three stages in the afternoon, and any fundamental car adjustments were going to be impossible.
“You are very limited on what you can bring to the race. So, I mean, there’s not so much you can change on a rally,” the world champion explained.
“At the same time, we tried a lot of little things, which gave me some improvement, but not the one we were expecting.”
It was telling that Toyota locked out the top-five positions and the Hyundais were sixth to eighth, all separated by just 1.5s. This was down to the car, not the drivers.
Tänak was not happy with the balance of his i20
Again, Tänak talked about the balance.
“Obviously the balance is not working in the car, so easy as that,” he said. “There’s really no medicine to put in. It’s a bit of a tricky position to be in.
“Obviously we’ve been more under the car today than in the car, so I’ve been trying all kinds of things. But yeah, most things were just to mask the issue a bit and to go around. But yeah, like you see, it really goes by the manufacturer, who has the speed and stuff.”
In a bid to improve the lack of grip Fourmaux had mentioned in the morning, the Frenchman “went softer, trying to get a bit of grip and to see also if it works with the tires”.
But it had the opposite effect as he lost significant pace.
Understanding the tire
Hyundai technical director François-Xavier Demaison – present in the media zones in team principal Cyril Abiteboul’s absence from the event – was up front that the team “haven’t done our homework properly before coming here”, believing the characteristics of Hankook’s hard compound tire did not get the best out of the car.
“We have a new tire manufacturer and we didn’t expect to have so many issues with managing the tires through the days,” Demaison said.
I'd like to stay positive, but I think actually the car doesn't really like the really dry Tarmac, and we have to cope with thatAdrien Fourmaux
“I think the conditions of this new tire highlights the fundamental issue we have with the car, which is not too difficult to solve, because we have been through this in the past, it’s not the first time.
“But we’ll need jokers and homologation to change a few things. We don’t have so many left, we’ll have to be careful.”
Each driver had a day of testing, and Neuville completed strong mileage at Rally Sierra Morena – the opening round of the ERC. So had this performance on the rally caught the team out?
“I think some were confident [after the tests], some less,” Demaison said. “Thierry did a rally where he was quite confident at the end of the rally, but it was not really representative.
“Here, with different conditions, we are struggling much more. We tried many directions with all three drivers this afternoon. So now we have to make a conclusion of what is the best solution for tomorrow and mostly for Sunday.”
Fourmaux agreed with Demaison’s assessment that the car didn’t like the hard tires so much.
“To be fair, yes,” he said. “I think it’s easier with the soft. When we did tests and with the hard, we are struggling a little bit. We need to understand, that’s the thing. Why are we so slow compared to the others? We need to understand.
“There is one joker that I think we could use, but… it will not completely change the car for sure,” he added.
“I’d like to stay positive, but I think actually the car doesn’t really like the really dry Tarmac, and we have to cope with that. It’s only one event of the season. So we have to wait a bit and wait for Portugal to have a better catch up.”
Why Fourmaux fared the best
Fourmaux had selected a softer gearbox and differential than his team-mates
Completing returning his car to the setup he used on Friday morning from Saturday onwards, Fourmaux made light work of overhauling his team-mates to reclaim the position of top Hyundai – one he held until the very end of the rally.
But why was he able to get more out of the package than both Neuville and Tänak?
“Adrien is the only one with a different gearbox and different differential, and it seems like it’s the better option and the way to go,” Neuville replied. “But unfortunately, myself and even Ott, we are locked with what we have.
“My feeling is that we are too locked. And since this chassis, we keep the wheels much better on the ground, we could be much more open with the diff ramps to carry on more speed.
“And we can see the gap with Adrien. He is running on a softer diff, the softest we have. We are on something in between with Ott. And we can’t go any softer now, so we are stuck with what we have.”
That was each driver’s choice at the test, “but actually in the test we couldn’t test all the options, so I drove with what we knew from Monte Carlo and other Tarmac events which worked. You can’t test everything”.
The conclusion
Neuville was at least faster on Sunday, but a puncture thwarted his efforts
For the third time this season (from four events), Toyota secured a maximum 60-point haul. Hyundai picked up just 35 from Canaries.
Neuville was at least showing better pace on Sunday (and claimed a powerstage point) but a penultimate stage puncture wrecked any chance of Super Sunday bonus points.
“Obviously, nobody could ignore the missing performance of the Hyundais this weekend. So it’s frustrating, definitely,” said Neuville, who finished seventh with Tänak sixth and Fourmaux fifth.
“And disappointing for all of us, because everybody has put the hard work into it, starting from me and Martijn [Wydaghe, co-driver], but also the team. But just something went wrong.
“We will put the finger on it and we will also, I think, all together try to dig even deeper to find what it needs. Is it related to tire? I don’t think only, but is it a part of it? Probably yes.
“And then, yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of other things we’re going to discuss internally and see what we can quickly improve and what takes more time.”
Despite having a better setup than Neuville, Fourmaux still pinpointed the differential as an area to address on Tarmac.
“They are quite aggressive for me on these kind of rallies,” he said. “And there is another thing that we need to understand if it’s only this or if there is something else. I think there is something else. We were working on it, and let’s see for the future.”
When he says something else…?
“It’s maybe more about the dampers and the new car. It’s related probably with the two,” Fourmaux responded.
DirtFish put Fourmaux’s assessment to Neuville.
“I think it’s more things than only dampers, it’s a combination of all,” Neuville added.
“We have a few areas we know we need to improve and we are not able to do it. I mean the drivers’ feedback is the same whatever with the Step 2 or the other car. The feedback is the same.
“We come back to something in terms of setup which was similar to before and we at least get some balance. We know where are the weak areas, but we don’t know yet how to improve them.”
Tänak felt “the car was not behaving like you would expect” as early as the test, but by the end of the rally was reaching for the positives.
“I mean, a difficult weekend like this, the positive we can take is that big lessons must be taken from here,” he said. “So, yeah, clearly we were not well prepared. Toyota at the same time was very well prepared. So I mean it’s clearly a unique event and I guess at the moment it’s just this rally, but generally, for sure, they’ve done a very good job and we were just not at their level.”
Toyota’s view
While Hyundai got it wrong last week, Toyota unquestionably got it right
Clearly, Kalle Rovanperä was the best driver in Gran Canaria, but he was also driving the best car.
Second-placed Sébastien Ogier recognized both of those facts, but confessed he was surprised to see how far ahead Toyota was of the rest.
“For sure, we always gave our best during test and preparation to be ready,” Ogier told DirtFish.
“Recently, it’s often been very intense and very close in the stages [between the teams]. And now, I think the main change this weekend was the tire. It looks like we have understood something better than them so far.
“You have to use these kind of advantages – you never know how long they’re going to last. But for sure, we need to congratulate our mechanics and engineers for the hard effort they’ve been doing. And thanks to that, all together, we’ve been very strong this weekend.”
So effectively, the difference between Toyota and Hyundai was both a reflection of how well Toyota did in its preparation and Hyundai got its own prep wrong.
“[The Toyota was] clearly the best car when you look at the times, so you can’t not give credit to the team,” said world championship leader Elfyn Evans.
Toyota "clearly" had the best car according to Evans
“Clearly they’ve recognized the challenges of the new tire and the challenges of this rally and prepared very well.”
Deputy team principal Juha Kankkunen’s comments reflected the confidence Toyota currently has right now.
“The biggest question mark has been the new tire manufacturer, but it seems to be that our car has been built very well to suiting the tire and they work together,” Kankkunen told DirtFish.
“So I’m not not at all nervous about the future.”
It’s unlikely the same words are being echoed down the halls of Alzenau this week.
