Quote Originally Posted by AnttiL View Post
I'm also interested in the cross tyre setup. What are the pros and cons? I understand the drivers have a limited amount of tyres per rally so sometimes that's what they have to do. But how much does the diff balance it out?
If I remember right it was Juho Hänninen in 2011 Monte Carlo who used it first (or at least it was first widely discussed case) when Škoda team (and Petter Solberg) fucked-up tyre choice and lost the fight for victory there. He used it out of necessity and it worked much better than let's say two winter tyres in front and two slicks in the rear.

I believe the main rationale lies in the fact that limitted-slip differential helps to bring overall grip level of the axle closer to the level of the better wheel. In that case an axle with only two wrong tyres benefits in no way from having LSD in between. Therefore if You have two better tyres it's better to place one in front and one in the rear (cross) and by that enhance a bit the grip on both axles instead of having one good and one useless.