Dani Sordo has questioned why World Rally Championship drivers had to make their tire choice 13 hours before they’d be used at Rally Portugal.
Because no service or remote service was included on Thursday’s opening leg of round six, crews had to select the Hankooks they wanted for Friday’s first four stages immediately after completing SS3 Figueira da Foz.
SS3 started at 6:05pm with Friday’s action beginning with Mortágua at 7:35am the following morning.
Most drivers picked a soft-biased package but Sordo – along with M-Sport’s Jon Armstrong and Mãrtins Sesks – selected four hard compound tires.
After completing SS4 11 seconds off the pace, Sordo vented: “The guys who make the rules to put the tires the day before is completely mad. Honestly, this is something like this. We don’t have any explanation. I don’t know why. The guys from Formula 1, they don’t put the tires two days before.
“There’s no point to do this because it’s risky. We want to make a good spectacular [show], we want to push. We can’t choose the tires if it’s raining or something the night before. We need to put confidence in the meteo guys. What is this? It’s not rally, it’s just strategy.
Sordo doesn't understand why drivers have to choose their tires the night before
“We want to drive, we want to push and make people happy in the stages by pushing with the right tires. This is a stupid thing; for the future they can modify it.”
It turned out that Sordo wanted three soft compound tires and two hards, but a “mistake” on Thursday led to him starting Friday with different tires than he wanted.
But the Spaniard feels “my complaint is fair”.
He told DirtFish on the road section: “Why do you need to choose the tires [the night] before? Why? Because the mechanics didn’t wake up earlier.
“If it’s raining in the night… we are many people working in the team and you put all the power and decision in one guy from the meteo. You know, if he makes a mistake, [then] what? You need to drive with these hard tires and you wake up in the morning, you have the information and you put the tires, because it’s safe also.
“And this is for what? To make the rally more strategic and all? We have many strategies. We have pacenotes, we have different conditions on the road, we have, like, set-ups, three days or four days driving. Why you can’t choose your tires in the morning? Why?
“Like I say, in Formula 1 they don’t choose the tyres one week before.”
DirtFish put Sordo’s comments to nine-time world champion Sébastien Ogier, who fully agreed with the Hyundai driver.
“It’s a rule which is in place now since last year I guess and yeah, it makes no sense at all that we need to choose our tires the evening before,” he said.
“You never know what happens overnight, the weather can develop quicker than we thought sometimes. It makes no sense that you ask us to choose a tire one evening before, especially when we are in service.
“Everybody is always there, our team is there. Of course, they need to wake up a bit earlier for that, but honestly, in the past, we used to have a small service in the morning and I think we have asked [for] already a lot and I completely agree with Dani.”
DirtFish approached the FIA for comment, and a spokesperson explained that holding a tire fitting zone first thing on Friday morning was not logistically possible.
The FIA spokesperson said: “The Friday itinerary included the Arganil remote service, which required the relevant service infrastructure and tire equipment to be in place ahead of the first cars entering service on Friday morning. As a result, it was not possible to hold a tire fitting zone in the morning and then relocate the necessary equipment to Arganil.
“This is a standard logistical consideration when a remote service is included in the itinerary. Crews were able to make their tire selections on Thursday evening and have the opportunity to change tires and adjust their strategy during the morning remote service.”
