It is not with words that you win a rally, it is by driving. Good victory for Lappi, he controlled rather easy, never made any mistake and was going quick when necessary.
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Abbring decided to stop because he might have damaged the driveshaft:
'4 stage wins out of 4 stages this morning! Not bad without having done any of the stages yesterday. Unfortunately we had a scary moment after clipping one of the white poles on the inside of a corner on the fifth stage, the impact was so hard on the steering wheel that it ripped it out of my hands so we were thrown into a metal barrier on the other side of the road. Car was ok but we maybe damaged a driveshaft and decided to stop. The foot of the white pole must have been sticking out at the bottom. My bad!'
Is Lappi still not champion?
Nobody was saying he is rubbisch, he did good rally and took indeed 9 stage wins. But you must see also that Lappi was not pushing, because there was no need for that after Craig lost a minute with puncture very early in the rally. I think Lappi did intelligent rally, taking no risks at all.
It's much easier to make the cars more reliable today, believe me. The option designers have now are something those from 1980' could not even dream of. The reason why the cars today are not 100% reliable is that the target is not such. They go to the limits of components to make the car faster. If they don't do that the opponent does. It's about finding a compromise. Let's call it calculated risk. To make the car faster than Your opponent You have to sacrifice something. There is no direct link between power and reliability. If WRC cars have 500 Hp the reliability will be most likely approximately same as it is now and that is very very good.
In case of R5 the problem is mainly in the rules. They must use plenty of stock components or plenty of parts with some given price limit. Now imagine how would You build a gr.B car from stock components in 1985. In those days it would be hilarious idea, totally impossible. Today it is possible. Of course in 1980' the gr.B cars were seen as complex but in 2014 most of stock cars are more complex than them.