56. Renties Ypres Rally Belgium 2021

[mknight]

Tanak sideways on SD:
https://twitter.com/El_Risson/status...01919118987271

[AnttiL]

Based on the shakedown, Ott has found something to make the Hyundai work for him.

In a tarmac rally like Croatia or Tour de Corse, most of the corners are "mid-speed", finding the limit of the grip and trying to go as fast as possible within that. In Ypres, there will be lots of tight handbrake turns and lots of flat out corners, but less of those "limit" corners, so maybe that works better for other drivers than Neuville?

[Eli]

Based on the shakedown, Ott has found something to make the Hyundai work for him.

In a tarmac rally like Croatia or Tour de Corse, most of the corners are "mid-speed", finding the limit of the grip and trying to go as fast as possible within that. In Ypres, there will be lots of tight handbrake turns and lots of flat out corners, but less of those "limit" corners, so maybe that works better for other drivers than Neuville?

That's all nice and well, but it won't help much if he'll suffer the same problem(s?) that Craig is enduring right now. Hopefully they'll get it fixed in time although I doubt they can do anything without incurring a penalty of sorts, unless it's an electrical fault or something. Again, all speculation, hopefully someone will enlighten the situation for us.

[mknight]

Well yes Hyundai seemed to struggle most in "longer", "mid-speed" corners and as you say and there are few of those here.

That said it's shakedown where they remember every corner after 2-3 passes, in rally when there is many more unpredictable changes in corner and the car needs to react it might be more difficult (ref. C3).

Another point is that I think the SD is faster than most rally stages and Tanak (like Rovanpera and Breen) are best on "fast" rallies/stages.

As a final thought with regards to championship his only (very small) hope is to push. He won't close up by ending 3-4th, so question is if he goes crazy push level. (Historically he seems to be unmotivated if he only should "finish", like in Monza last year).

So I hesitate to read too much into it.

[EstWRC]

Only a shakedown but I like too what I’m seeing from Tänak so far. He was nowhere in Croatia shakedown.

As it has some similarities with Germany then I’m not that surprised but we will see.

[AnttiL]

Tanak (like Rovanpera and Breen) are best on "fast" rallies/stages.

On gravel. On tarmac it's a different story.

However we must also remember Tänak won Rally Deutschland three last times it was run, every time it was run on the current gen cars, and that's probably the closest rally to Ypres. At the same time, Tour de Corse was never Tänak's strongest rally.

Also, in Ypres all the stages have fast, mid-speed and slow corners, plenty of them. Just mixed in different amounts. For example shakedown has four tight junctions in 9.81 km, Something like 0.4/km SS1 will have 16 tight junctions in 15 kilometres, so it's close to 1/km, so it will be a slower stage.

[AnttiL]

That said it's shakedown where they remember every corner after 2-3 passes, in rally when there is many more unpredictable changes in corner and the car needs to react it might be more difficult (ref. C3).

Although I think i20 on tarmac is the opposite of C3. C3 seemed to be oversteering as hell like a racing car, whereas i20 is more like a FWD car, understeering and only controllable by pulling handbrake (like Neuville does).

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Breen says he had a really good feeling with the car but some issues on each run mean his times dont reflect this.

[satnav]

A big point of Ieper is the cutting, the crews need to watch the stewards in case they lose the plot and start issuing penalties for cutting as has been done before, track limits need to stay in F1. There has been cases before where the full car has been off the road, I hope common sense prevails.

[EstWRC]

https://youtu.be/DFkzC0-r5A8