Kalle Rovanperä has suggested he will never fully acclimatize to Hankook’s World Rally Championship gravel control tire.
Hankook took over as sole tier supplier to the WRC this season on a three-year deal, replacing Pirelli – which had been the control tire manufacturer for all but one of Rovanperä’s seasons at the top level of rallying.
Reliability and robustness of the tire were Hankook’s priorities in the development of its new WRC rubber, although several drivers expressed at the start of the year a desire for performance characteristics of its tires to be improved over time.
Rovanperä complained repeatedly that he lacked grip during Rally Portugal, suggesting that his natural style of working the tire through driving was not compatible with the Hankook compound – his attempts to push them harder meant more wear but without his pace increasing accordingly.
“For sure there is some work to do with that,” Rovanperä told DirtFish. “I think these are never going to be natural for me, but it was quite clear that we lacked some pace and grip on the car.
“I was doing no mistakes, I was pushing the whole day. The tire wear is quite big when you have to push too much [but even then] I still don’t have the pace, so for sure we lack some grip.”
Pushing harder in Portugal only increased the wear on Rovanperä's tires
The two-time world champion’s battle to figure out how to adapt better to the gravel tires therefore continues. Hankook rolled out modifications between Kenya and Portugal and while he has been able to improve, Rovanperä still lacks the natural feeling he had with the Pirellis.
“It will be for a long time,” said Rovanperä of the adaptation process. “I don’t know if I will ever be happy with these because, like I’ve said many times, it’s just against how I naturally do it. It’s probably always going to be tricky, but at least now we have found quite an OK way to go.”
Toyota is not conducting a pre-event test prior to Rally Italy Sardinia and Rovanperä has indicated he can’t find the right setup balance with the Hankook gravel tire – so is limiting his expectations for the next round of the season.
“Usually here [in Portugal] we’ve had really good pace, so if we didn’t have the optimal pace here, Sardinia has always been more tricky,” he said. “It could be difficult.”
