Two Toyotas and Dani Sordo’s Hyundai suffered near-identical tire problems on the seventh stage of Rally Spain, as front-left punctures demoted the three drivers down the order.
Toyota pair Elfyn Evans and Takamoto Katsuta both reported suffering punctures with around three miles remaining on Les Garrigues Altes, leaving behind sufficient debris that Craig Breen spotted included the remains of Evans’ tire while still traversing the stage.
“It went down almost immediately with no warning, so I don’t know,” Evans rued.
Katsuta had it even worse; not only did he drop time with a puncture but his hybrid system had stopped delivering boost, leaving him down on power to boot.
“We didn’t have any impact,” said Katsuta. “Just tight right corner, straight away front-left is exploding. Anyway, I had no hybrid, so it feels like a big disaster for this stage.”
It was less of a disaster for Sordo despite his puncture. His came only “two kilometers from the end,” and while it cost him 18.5s, he actually gained a position, profiting from Evans’ 38.5s time loss to take fifth place from him.
“I hear something, clack, in the cut, I think after the mud it’s coming some stones or something,” explained Sordo.
“We lost time but it could be worse,” he rightfully concluded, given he’d still gained a place.
There were no problems for the lead Toyotas though, as Sébastien Ogier remained out front overall with Kalle Rovanperä going fastest by 0.7s.
After struggling a little on the previous test the two lead Hyundais were back on song, with Thierry Neuville and Ott Tänak going third and fourth fastest on Les Garrigues Altes and continuing to occupy the same positions overall.
Tänak felt at a loss to understand how to go any faster, feeling he simply couldn’t get the car to do his bidding and allow him the chance to fight his team-mate for third.
“Probably not as comfortable as him,” said Tänak, referring to Neuville.
“Nothing is new. I can’t find a way to make the car work. Not even to work, to understand what I need to do. It’s tricky, that’s all we can do at the moment.”
Breen profited from Katsuta’s puncture and retook the seventh place he’d lost earlier on Friday morning – and is only 1.6s behind sixth-placed Evans.
It appears unlikely that Breen will be pushing hard to take the position off Evans on Friday’s final stage, though.
“I’m trying not to overload the front,” the lead M-Sport driver explained. “There’s a lot of scope there to be faster but I’m just happy to be ticking them off with no mistakes, that’s the most important thing today.”
The trio of Ford Pumas behind Katsuta all expressed the exact same confusion – their times on the board were slower than they’d felt behind the wheel, and none of them could understand why.
“I don’t get how the time can be that s**t,” said Greensmith as he crossed the finishing line. He followed it up with further thoughts at stop control: ““I felt like I had a very good stage but still missing 17 seconds. I have no idea where that is.”
Fourmaux had a similar feeling: “The time is not what I would expect.”
But unlike Greensmith, he at least hazarded a guess as to why. “I was a little bit overheating the tyres at one point; for the rest, I thought it was a good stage. We need to find the key to be faster.”
