They say the stopwatch doesn’t lie, but Esapekka Lappi must’ve felt it was tricking him in Estonia.
No rally driver – professional or not – wants to be uncompetitive on a rally stage, but if the time is bad there’s usually a reason. And the driver understands what that reason is.
The worst place, mentally, for a driver to be is off the pace but unable to fathom why.
This was Lappi’s reality at last week’s World Rally Championship round.
“The feeling and the stopwatch just didn’t match,” Lappi explained.
“I was expecting much more than this – to be fighting maybe not for the win but definitely closer than where we were.”
Lappi failed to beat his team-mates on any of Rally Estonia's 18 stages
Lappi hadn’t competed in the car for four months, and that was Safari Rally Kenya – the polar opposite in terms of driving style.
But the Finn will hope for more next week when he starts his home event – a rally he won back in 2017.
“Well I did all the mileage and I got used to more and more the downforce again,” Lappi reflected, “but also for the tire, I find it challenging to understand the feeling of it when it’s biting or not.
“This feeling I never got. To find the limit of the tire and the grip is really challenging for me.
“And yesterday (Saturday) we went once over this limit [when he ran wide and almost hit a tree]. So this is good to understand now that I cannot have this biting feeling.
“So I just need to the to compensate myself for that. And yeah, that’s probably the most important thing from this rally.”
Lappi eventually finished eighth, 2m31.9s down on rally winner Sami Pajari while his team-mates – Adrien Fourmaux and Thierry Neuville – were third and fourth and within a minute of Pajari.
However Hyundai sporting director Andrew Wheatley doesn’t believe any more should have been expected of Lappi.
“EP’s not doing every round of the championship and he’s naturally competitive,” Wheatley told DirtFish.
“And after Sweden, when he came in and was dub by int at the same level as Thierry and Adrien, he expected to come here and be jumping in at the same level as Thierry and Adrien again/
“It’s more complicated on these fast gravel rallies. If you are slightly more hesitant you drop time here, and you can’t get it back.
“So I think for sure EP’s had a difficult couple of days but step by step he’s made an improvement and between the two runs of the powerstage, we’ve seen a significant improvement in terms of his seconds per kilometre [deficit].
“For our team, we’re kind of thinking of this as one long rally – a two week rally with a week off in the middle – and hopefully we can keep that momentum that he’s got in the last stage and the opportunity to just keep pushing.”
