Adrien Fourmaux led praise for World Rally Championship tire supplier Hankook, the FIA and WRC Promoter’s decision to introduce a tire exchange zone at Rally Chile.
Rally1 competitors are usually permitted 28 tires for use across a WRC round, but in Chile that allowance was increased to 36 as a response to the tire troubles experienced two weeks earlier at Rally del Paraguay.
Tire exchange zones were added to the itinerary in between Lota and Maria las Cruces (which concluded the loop) on Saturday, as well as midway through Sunday between SS14 BioBio 1 and SS15 Carampangue 2.
Competitors had to keep the same number of tires in the car that they’d left service with, but could exchange up to two used tires for two new ones of differing compounds if they wished.
“It worked,” Fourmaux told DirtFish. “I think it would have been more trouble today [on Sunday if we didn’t have this exchange zone], especially. And I think yesterday also.
“So globally, I think it was a good reaction, yeah.”
Pajari hopes to see the concept used at other events
Toyota’s Sami Pajari agreed, suggesting the format should be replicated at future events.
“Actually I think that was quite good thing to have,” he said. “Of course it’s nicer for us, you can have a little bit more margin to play with and I think it’s also nicer for the fans that we are just not going slowly, that we can really push.
“I know this game is not cheap, and we always talk about the expenses, but maybe four extra tires is not going to change anything at the end of the day. So, for me, that was a nice thing to do.”
Hankook spokesperson Steven Cho thanked all stakeholders for their cooperation in implementing the change at short notice.
“Big thanks to everyone at the FIA and at the promoter, and of course all of the technical teams and all the manufacturers, it really is a very close working relationship and a good collaboration, even through the tough times,” Cho told DirtFish.
“This was an idea that came forward, and you know again big thanks to the promoter and the FIA to help us implement that very, very quickly because to be honest, it was, I think, more difficult for the organizers and the FIA to get it done than it was for us.
“So everyone was very open about it. And, you know, the sort of statement and the feeling that we’re all in the same boat and we’re all doing our best for the championship was very clear.”
The tires were far less of a talking point across Rally Chile than they had been in Paraguay, but championship leader Elfyn Evans did suffer a puncture that he had to change on Sunday, costing him three positions overall and valuable championship points.
“I think we knew that, of course, Saturday and Sunday would be more difficult than the Friday, even without the help of the weather. And then Sunday, I guess, was sort of known to be a tire killer anyways,” Cho said.
“We had relatively warm temperature, so, I’m not surprised that we had a little bit more sort of frequency of issues on the Sunday. Again, we have to look into what that was, but I guess historically looking back, you know, Biobio and so on, it’s always been very, very difficult.
“We’re really disappointed for Elfyn, but we need to understand what the issue was there.”
