27th Kennards Hire Rally Australia 2018 • 15-18 November

[N.O.T]

What is the biggest lead a driver blew in championship to lose it ?

Did that useless potato nothing just broke a record ?

[Barreis]

hyundai is a loser of the season (when we look from the bigger perspective). we won't count citroen with their poor choice of leading drivers

[mknight]

We have progressed as a team this year, and we know that in 2019, it will play tactically at the beginning of the season..

Read: Neuville demands that no other Hyundai driver ever takes any points from him. Joy.
Means they will be forbidden to push on PS as well?

Anyway I find it funny when people say their biggest mistanke was not getting Ogier. Cause you could say exactly the same thing about Toyota! At end of 2016 Tommi didn't really want him to join, just set the test cause Japan wanted it and put it on the test when the car was on wet tarmac for very first time (why not Finland where the car was driving all the time?, Tommi said it was cause he had the Spain test planned, that's really trying hard).

Then again mid 2017 they signed Tänak instead of Ogier and now they signed Meeke instead Ogier again. So 3 chances.

Hyundais main fail this year is imo not that they don't have Ogier, but that the car struggles in quite a few rallies (Finland, tarmac).

[Ucci]

https://twitter.com/RallitFi/status/1064149043209736192

To be honest-this manu title is a very poor consolation. Toyota with xxx-more €€€ budget and by far superior car&driver has blown driver title against driver from private team. And that hurts.....

[EstWRC]

Tänak onboard SS14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjhZBvO9TqY&t=

[Tarmop]

To be honest-this manu title is a very poor consolation. Toyota with xxx-more €€€ budget and by far superior car&driver has blown driver title against driver from private team. And that hurts.....

Well, not so sure...from day one the Japanese have been going on about the manuf. title.

[Ucci]

Well, not so sure...from day one the Japanese have been going on about the manuf. title.

Can be, but for normal rally fans the drivers title counts...and looking this video I see normal fans. Not a manufacture representatives.

[Rallyper]

To be honest-this manu title is a very poor consolation. Toyota with xxx-more €€€ budget and by far superior car&driver has blown driver title against driver from private team. And that hurts.....

At some point, regardless of how much xxx-Euros you put in, it´s up to the drivers to drive the manu-title home. So your stat is not worth anything. Toyota had the best drivers to gain the title.

[Finne]

Few perspectives from the season and anticipations about following season:

I disagree with some forumers assesments about current car performance levels. Citroen is the most underestimated car because there is no good hands behind the weel (except Loeb).

My estimation goes as follows:

1. Citroen and Toyota.

some space...

3. Ford and Hyundai

My assesment of Citroen´s speed is very simple: Loeb was perhaps fastest driver in Corsica and won in Catalunya. Östberg has been faster than ever with anything. Breen has been also suprisingly fast. Östberg and Breen are not expected to fight stage wins without very fast car. With Citroen Mikkelsen finished in Germany 30 seconds off winner (2017). How slow he was with Hyundai in comparison.. with more tests even. Meeke was generally dissappointment but showed extreme speed in Catalunya 2017. It´s quite safe to say that Citroen is the fastest car on tarmac (maybe Toyota could currently match it). It´s fundamentally very sound car. They had some initial problems on gravel and on wet tarmac but they are fixed by now. Next year Ogier and Citroen will be formidable combination. The title will be decided between Ogier and Tänak.

Tänak gave interesting comment when he said that they should win title in this year because he don´t know if they have chance next year. He is exaggerating but what he is clearly thinking is Citroen and Ogier combination.

Hyundai has lost most in competition. I consider Hyundai even slower than Ford generally. On twisty and rough gravel Huyndai and Neuville are impressive. However, on tarmac they are slow as hell and on fast gravel they are not anywhere. Sordo and Mikkelsen would be very near to top with good tarmac car (as showed in Germany 2017). The way Neuville drags the car to slide is impressive but also tells about problems with car. There is good footage from Catalunya showing Neuville doing controlled sliding in mid-speed corners. I was slightly pitying for Neuville as he was looking slow in comparison to Loeb in every rally. I am quite sure that Citroen is 1 or 2 minutes faster in rally length on tarmac compared to Hyundai. Even Ford is probably half of minute faster in rally length on tarmac.

Rating drivers it´s very difficult to make any speed difference between Ogier, Tänak and Neuville. We know that Tänak should be par with Ogier. However, I wouldn´t rank Neuville´s speed lower level at all. The way how Neuville manhandles Hyundai on gravel is always impressive (one good memory Sardinia power stage). Neuville also beats his team mates with huge margins. It would be difficult to imagine that anyone would drive Hyundai better than Neuville is doing.

Technical notion about forum: I lost my text because quick reply just caused logging out.. Fortunately copy paste was made.

[Ds3]

I think that Ogier does not have to go to the Citroen who has betrayed him several times and took him a title. He had to beat them with competing brands all their lives.