As soon as the split times started rolling in, something was clearly amiss.
Esapekka Lappi losing time to Adrien Fourmaux wasn’t the alarm bell – it was how much time. Too much time, realistically, for this to be anything other than tactical.
Lappi – along with Hayden Paddon and Dani Sordo – is a part-time driver for Hyundai in 2026. Fourmaux and Thierry Neuville aren’t.
Hyundai’s strategy is clear: Fourmaux and Neuville are fighting for the drivers’ championship; the rest are supporting the manufacturers’ bid.
Lappi ceded 12.5 seconds to Foumaux on Västervik 2, Rally Sweden’s penultimate stage, and waved goodbye to his fifth position in the process.
Lappi would've finished as the top Hyundai in Sweden, but backed off to aid Fourmaux's championship
A team order, surely?
Sort of. Lappi wasn’t explicitly ordered to do so, rather decided himself that it was the best course of action.
“Well, if I’m honest, we had some discussion, yes,” Lappi told DirtFish, “and then I made a decision on my own that it’s fair. I don’t need these points; he does.
“OK, Thierry might as well, but he was so far away that it was… yeah, would have been weird to make that switch. But yeah, I personally took that decision to play a team game.”
Hyundai sporting director Andrew Wheatley appreciated Lappi’s thought process.
“There was a heck of a lot of risk on that stage, on the second run round,” Wheatley told DirtFish. “The second run round that stage is the stage that I had identified.
“I think we all knew that that could be the one where there could be fireworks. Second run round, a bit more complicated. Traditionally, those are the stages where if there’s a problem, it’s going to be on those stages.
Wheatley has enjoyed working with Lappi and Mälkönen this week
“Actually, everybody did an amazing job, you know, and got round, but I think EP was a little bit thinking, ‘this could be a bit challenging’.
“I think it’s exactly where he is. He knows his role and he knows what’s required from him and he did exactly what he was required to do.”
The same goes for his performance over the weekend; his first WRC rally since September 2024.
“I think he did exactly what everybody thought he could potentially do,” Wheatley said of Lappi.
“I think if we were a third of a second a kilometer faster in the car he would have been challenging to be on the podium. He did a fantastic job, jumped into the car, limited testing, did exactly what was required, understood exactly what was needed, not a scratch on the car, gave some good feedback to the team, helped us with the cold weather preparations, and Enni [Mälkönen] smiled whenever you looked at her, so it was a breath of fresh air through the team.
“And it’s great. I think what we’re seeing with EP is exactly where he wants to be. He doesn’t want to be fighting every weekend for a championship. He wants to come and enjoy his driving, feel like he can make a positive contribution to the team, and then go home and come back in a few weeks’ time.”
Lappi and co-driver Mälkönen will be back for Safari Rally Kenya (March 12-15).
