Sébastien Ogier and Elfyn Evans have suggested a bespoke tire should be developed for World Rally Championship events as rough as Acropolis Rally Greece.
Ogier and M-Sport’s Josh McErlean were the only factory Rally1 drivers not to suffer a tire-related problem in Greece; the rest either had a slow puncture or stopped to change a deflated tire.
Reigning world champion Ogier has often been critical of Hankook, and still believes the tire isn’t performing as it should. But he suggested a bespoke product for rough rallies would be a solution.
“It’s been very rough, but I guess it’s Greece,” Ogier told DirtFish. “It’s not so much rougher than what we used to have here.
“I don’t want to be too hard on Hankook because they did some improvement coming here. But for the roughness of Greece, it’s definitely not enough and that’s the kind of rally where you need to have a specific product if you want to survive this roughness.
“So, yeah, let’s hope that at least that was the toughest part of the season in terms of issues with tires and I think from the next rallies, hopefully we can all focus more on fully driving, fully the battle, and not thinking too much about staying out of trouble.”
In the past we've always had a specific tire, or at least a durable tire to cope.Elfyn Evans
Championship leader Elfyn Evans echoed Ogier’s thoughts.
“We’ve always had rough rallies like this, and in the past we’ve always had a specific tire, or at least a durable tire to cope with that,” he told DirtFish.
“Obviously I don’t feel like we’ve really had difficult loops, really. You know, often it’s been two stages then the second pass. But if we did have situations where we have two-three stages [on the] second pass, there would be no hope with this tire. So I feel like the tire is the first priority to fix.”
Thierry Neuville suffered one of the most significant punctures in Greece, as his occurred on the penultimate stage and ultimately denied him a shot of taking victory from Ogier. But the Hyundai driver felt Greece “was a reasonable performance from Hankook” considering how rough the stage conditions were.
He told DirtFish: “I mean, I’m a long time in this game, I have seen a lot of different rallies. And when conditions like this weekend can surprise me, it means everything basically. It means that it is very rough.
Even this unconventional method of saving tire wear wasn't enough to prevent Neuville suffering
“And on the other hand, I have driven different tire manufacturers. I know what’s possible. I wouldn’t say that we are too far off. But if you consider that the conditions are sometimes worse, and the tire still has a few little weak points, I think it was a reasonable performance from Hankook this weekend.”
M-Sport Ford team principal Richard Millener meanwhile feels Hankook can’t be judged for its performances at a rally as brutal as the Acropolis.
“I think this rally is renowned for being one of the hardest in the calendar, and we know that, and until you’ve sat inside and experienced a Rally1, you really have no conception of how mad it is inside and how hard they’re pushing the cars,” Millener told DirtFish.
“Combined with when you see the pictures on TV when they’re in the stage, you also have no conception of how rough it really is and how hard the conditions are. So the tire is getting one of the hardest jobs on the whole car.
“I think we’ve seen some punctures that have been unexpected and people don’t know where they picked them up, but that’s also not a new thing. We’ve seen that a lot of times over the years, of drivers saying ‘I didn’t hit anything’ and punctures are part of the sport. But we’ve also seen punctures where you can tell drivers are on an incredibly hard push.
Fourmaux may have paid the price for pushing too hard
“Adrien [Fourmaux]’s time on Sunday morning was huge, And with that, you take some life out of the tire and you go into the next stage with the same approach, and then he picked up a puncture.
“I get it: it’s frustrating for everybody when you drop a position, you drop time. But, you know, I think this rally is not one I would personally be judging a performance of a tire on because it’s so difficult, and the temperatures don’t help and the loops are long, the stages are rough.
“And we talk about it in the buildup to the events – the Acropolis Rally, Rally of the Gods, how hard it is, historically one of the hardest rallies in the championship, which hasn’t changed. So I don’t believe there’s anything new.
“You know, the guys that are here on the ground, again, behind the scenes, they’re working super-hard to try and make everything as best we can,” Millener added.
“They’ve developed a product that’s improved dramatically over the time that they’ve been in the WRC. Yes, there’s always something you can improve on, but every team’s got something they can improve on somewhere. It always gets harder on events like this where tire issues and punctures are more prevalent, but you shouldn’t judge everything just on one event.”
Hankook rubber came under scrutiny
Hankook’s perspective
Hankook spokesperson Steven Cho told DirtFish the conditions in Greece “did not surprise us at all” as it had been warned the event “was going to be the toughest ever”.
Hankook, however, is committed to incorporating all feedback from drivers and teams to assess how to improve its product going forward.
“When you have a negative comment, sometimes it can be tough. But at the same time, you know, we are here in the world championship and it’s supposed to be the hardest, most challenging thing,” Cho said. “And we accept the challenge.
“We are here and we take the glory, but we’ll also take the criticism and it’s part of it.
“Probably we’re going to need to wait until next week, get a little bit of distance [from the event] and do a bit of analysis to understand how much of it is Acropolis and how much of it are areas that we can improve.”
