Cyril Abiteboul, Team DirtFish is coming to say hello – sent by Esapekka Lappi.
And we will get to Hyundai’s team principal at this afternoon’s service. But for now, the reason why we need to talk with the friendly Frenchman.
It started with a Finn getting muddy on a Saturday morning.
Seeing Lappi rolling around on the floor, fiddling with the left-rear corner of his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 before the weekend’s Soysambu opener was odd. Incongruous.
He didn’t want to talk at the time (understandably), but we caught up with him at the end of a loop he didn’t expect to get through.
Reflecting on his efforts before SS8, he told DirtFish: “It wasn’t really a repair. It should have been something else, but it didn’t work out.
“I was pretty sure we’re going to retire – it seems I couldn’t fix it.”
Fix what?
“You need talk to Cyril. I don’t want say anything. It’s all OK.
“Let’s say, I was quite exhausted before the opening stage. I was sweating a lot! And then after the long stage, we needed to do some work with the car.
“It’s been a tough morning.”
But not a bad morning. He’s gone second, third and fourth fastest on the event’s three most northerly stages – and, courtesy partly of a slow puncture for Elfyn Evans, he’s made it past the Welshman and into a provisional podium position.
Come back later for part two of this story, the part where we follow EP’s orders and talk to the boss.
