Citroen WRT

[mknight]

so c3 is not good at dry asphalt we saw at tests?

On Monte saturday was mostly dry. C3s of Meeke and Lefevbre were 7-10 place most of the day then a single 3rd place. You might remember/review the live stage from there on wrc+.

This lack of speed was later blamed on "not good settings" by Citroen press release. As it turns out now and Citroen admits it's more of a car issue being too sensitive to perfect settings.
There were test vids from Monte testing with rain/sleet/wet-snow, still looked plenty fast.

[wrc2017]

The testing venues were of particular issue pre-season.

Also why can you not admit also that the fundamental or the car are wrong, u always blame the driver at every opperunity?

Its clearer now the engineering team choose the test venues which suited the car, and gave false hope.

.

I think this part is rather important. One can understand it as one or both of:

a) The drivers did a bad job at developing the car/ providing feedback/ testing

or

b) The value of repeated runs of short test sections where drivers know every stone is limited - This would also explain why some people were so sure Citroen would decimate all after looking at their test vids in December.

[dimviii]

On Monte saturday was mostly dry. C3s of Meeke and Lefevbre were 7-10 place most of the day then a single 3rd place. You might remember/review the live stage from there on wrc+.

This lack of speed was later blamed on "not good settings" by Citroen press release. As it turns out now and Citroen admits it's more of a car issue being too sensitive to perfect settings.
There were test vids from Monte testing with rain/sleet/wet-snow, still looked plenty fast.

why are you talking about Saturday at Monte that was mostly dry,and don't talk about Corsica which was bone dry? Monte has compromises at set up,its not a dry setup.
Ok we have understand that you are not a citroen/ Meeke fun,but Meeke after 4 stages was 10 sec faster than the 4 time champion and 25 sec faster from the faster driver this year Neville. It was the SAME as we had seen and talk at tests.Exactly the SAME!!!
All teams use to test at small distance stages which make repeat passes.Citroen didnt test someway different from other teams,or from what was testing at previous years.
The problem wasn't at this point.

[NickRally]

OK. Sorry for the offtopic

Just to finish this OT, apologies, I did some searching and it appears the road car was 56/44 front/rear, I assume to reflect the weight distribution.

I also found the link below stating that the rally car had the following centre diff split options: 50/50, 40/60 and 45/55 front/rear - there is no guarantee of course this info is accurate, but I suspect with the higher power and grip of the rally version, the engineers would have catered for the greater longitudinal weight transfer plus handling benefits of slightly greater rear torque percentage and have gone for the above options.

http://tech-racingcars.wikidot.com/lancia-delta-hf-4wd

[Mirek]

With stock cars it makes sense to have more torque on the front axle to ease the handling for not that good and experienced drivers. I don't know how in 80' but novadays stock cars are generally made to understeer in critical situation so that possible crash comes at best frontally.

[mknight]

why are you talking about Saturday at Monte that was mostly dry,and don't talk about Corsica which was bone dry? Monte has compromises at set up,its not a dry setup.
Ok we have understand that you are not a citroen/ Meeke fun,but Meeke after 4 stages was 10 sec faster than the 4 time champion and 25 sec faster from the faster driver this year Neville. It was the SAME as we had seen and talk at tests.Exactly the SAME!!!
All teams use to test at small distance stages which make repeat passes.Citroen didnt test someway different from other teams,or from what was testing at previous years.
The problem wasn't at this point.

You completely missed Matton's point, that I am trying to emphasize with examples.

The car is fast when the setup is perfect for the conditions, something that is easy to do for test or a stable conditions/road rally = Corsica.

Whole day at monte is not stable conditions with some ice bits here and there => bad performance. Testing for Monte is stable conditions (same road, memorized by drivers), even with some minor weather changes => good looking test and feedback.

The problem clearly was at that point, the "sensitivity" of the car itself was not revealed by the tests. (without speculating who's fault that is, you can blame anyone depending on your angle, designers for design choices, drivers for feedback, people setting up the tests... team management for not getting other test drivers etc etc.)

[dimviii]

just forreference all road evos have distribution at 50-50

[mknight]

The testing venues were of particular issue pre-season.

Also why can you not admit also that the fundamental or the car are wrong, u always blame the driver at every opperunity?

Its clearer now the engineering team choose the test venues which suited the car, and gave false hope.

.

It's not clearer to me at all, any test venue that runs over a day or more will prbly suit the car after you change the setup enough.
The two options I listed is the two possible meanings of Matton's statement, not my opinion.

I personally don't blame drivers only for how the C3 started. I do blame Meeke for Argentina 2nd off-Portugal-Sardinia if that's what you are asking.

[dimviii]

You completely missed Matton's point, that I am trying to emphasize with examples.

The car is fast when the setup is perfect for the conditions, something that is easy to do for test or a stable conditions/road rally = Corsica.

Whole day at monte is not stable conditions with some ice bits here and there => bad performance. Testing for Monte is stable conditions (same road, memorized by drivers), even with some minor weather changes => good looking test and feedback.

The problem clearly was at that point, the "sensitivity" of the car itself was not revealed by the tests. (without speculating who's fault that is, you can blame anyone depending on your angle, designers for design choices, drivers for feedback, people setting up the tests... team management for not getting other test drivers etc etc.)

I was talking about that you wrote.

b) The value of repeated runs of short test sections where drivers know every stone is limited - This would also explain why some people were so sure Citroen would decimate all after looking at their test vids in December.

Again one more time.
People watching ultra fast passes at dry tarmac and impressed,and exactly the same we saw at Corsica. Ultra fast car at dry stages.Cant say it more clear.
Repeated short stage tests doing all teams,not Citroen only.
Problem is not there.

[mknight]

Again one more time.
People watching ultra fast passes at dry tarmac and impressed,and exactly the same we saw at Corsica. Ultra fast car at dry stages.Cant say it more clear.
Repeated short stage tests doing all teams,not Citroen only.
Problem is not there.

I give up.
Tests didn't reveal how sensitive the car was to perfect setup (Matton's claim based on driver feedback to tests) that IS a problem.