Will a lack of Hyundai asphalt experience hurt Tänak?

This week’s Rally Croatia will be a step into the unknown for everybody. But for six of the nine factory World Rally Car drivers, the Zagreb-based event is an even bigger step into the darkness.

For Sébastien Ogier, Elfyn Evans, Kalle Rovanperä, Ott Tänak, Craig Breen and Adrien Fourmaux, this week represents their first World Rally Championship outing on an all-asphalt round of the series in their current car.

But how big a deal is that? Most of the above – all, in fact, except Fourmaux – have good knowledge of the World Rally Car they’re driving, even if it’s not for three days on a mostly sealed surface at the highest level.

Talk to Tänak in the wake of his Rally Sanremo outing earlier this month and he’s dismissive of the question of experience aboard a asphalt-specification i20 Coupe WRC.

“It’s true,” the 2019 world champion tells DirtFish, “that this is my first time on a full Tarmac round, but I’ve still been able to do quite a bit of testing.

“We have just done Sanremo, last year we did some in Germany, we did [Rally] Alba and these kind of small things, so I’ve had quite a bit of time on Tarmac in the car and I’m feeling more and more comfortable.

“I think this way we’ve been working quite a lot and there’s also been a big focus on Tarmac to get us forward and I am pretty sure we are moving that way.”

Seat time – on a macro and micro level – is something the Hyundai drivers have enjoyed much more of over the last year and a bit. Talk, for example, to Thierry Neuville about downtime in the seven weeks since Arctic Rally Finland leaves the Belgian slightly bemused.

“I enjoyed a few days off,” he said. “But I was still driving – I was in the car more or less every week.”

In terms of match fitness, the Toyota and M-Sport drivers are some way off their rivals from Alzenau in Croatia this week.

Relaying the Hyundai schedule to Evans brought a small but sharp intake of breath from the Welshman.

“We haven’t had the luxury of being in the car every week,” he said, “but I’m not too worried about that. And I’m not too worried about this being the first event with the car in Tarmac spec.

“We haven’t done a full Tarmac event in the car, this will be the first – the Monte’s the Monte and Monza last year? Well, that was a bit of as mini-Monte wasn’t it.

“As soon as I stepped into the Yaris on the test, it felt good.”

Evans was quick to caveat that last sentence with the point that the car felt good on one test road.

“The problem is,” said Evans, “we don’t know much – or really anything – about the stages. We’ve watched some onboards, but there’s nothing like getting out there and driving the roads.

“From what we can understand there’s such a wide variety of characteristics of stages that it’s very hard to capture the perfect test road that will incorporate elements of each of those stages.”

Of an even more pressing concern for the drivers will be the road conditions.

“With a fair bit of rain in the days leading up to the recce, I have a feeling it could be quite a dirty rally with cutting and a fair bit of mud pulled out,” Evans warned.

“But let’s wait and see.”