Hyundai WRT

[mknight]

I won't say it's end of Loeb's career at all. Sweden was the least likely start for him in the first place. It was rather a huge surprise that they nominated him there in the first place. We will surely see him on multiple gravel rallies, but probably not in Germany and likely not in Japan.

[Eli]

I won't say it's end of Loeb's career at all. Sweden was the least likely start for him in the first place. It was rather a huge surprise that they nominated him there in the first place. We will surely see him on multiple gravel rallies, but probably not in Germany and likely not in Japan.

Probably Kenya & NZ, as he does have some experience on the first and won the second the last time (OK 8 years ago but still) they were there.

[gorganl2000]

As a long time Loeb fan, i too am a bit taken back by Loeb's performance over the last 2 days, especially the tire issue on the last day. However, in the grand scheme of things, he probably achieved the team's goal for the most part. The way i see it, he was always going to be looking to place 4th, 5th or 6th, which would give him/team 12, 10, 8 points accordingly. I say this because i expected Neuville, Tanak and Ogier to be in the top three once they finished the rally; Evans was a much welcomed addition to the top tier party, especially after Tanak's unfortunate accident. I believed this helped to keep things lively up front until the end and i hope he would battle more with the main three throughout the year; it would be nice if Lappi could fight in there sometimes as well. I'd suspect Hyundai were expecting both Neuville and Tanak to finish to give them maximum points vs Ogier/Evans, and that was a reasonable assumption before the rally started; however, given Evans impressive performance, I'm not sure how Tanak would have compared to Evans even if Tanak hadn't crash as he's still learning the car as well (but that's all hindsight/assumptions now). With Loeb's mistakes and Lappi upping the pace and securing 4th, Rovanpera's 5th place made little difference to the manufacturer's point from Loeb's perspective as 5th or 6th place netted the same 10 points for the Hyundai team. Loeb only suffered personally from the driver's standings at 8 points, but then that's not essential to a man running a partial program and who was hired mainly to support the manufacturer's title. Overall Hyundai is leading in both categories as they wanted, mission accomplished (more or less); yes the 2 extra points for 4th would be nice, but its early days and one rally at a time, things could be worse.

i'm awaiting Loeb's gravel performance, i do think this will be his last year in WRC, but i'm not writing him off from being competitive on some of the upcoming rallies just yet.

big congratulations to Neuville for a brilliant performance and handling the pressure over the weekend. Excellent job from Ogier and Evans. i hope Tanak bounces back soon, i'm really happy he and his co-driver came out the accident unhurt.

2020 is looking exciting

[dimviii]

especially the tire issue on the last day.

to be fair we have to mention that tyre choice was in conjuction with team.They had informations for rain that didnt come.
Loeb as i know dont have a meteorogist for him.
Bluuford maybe can help us here( even via pm )



edit

Sébastien Loeb
@SebastienLoeb
·
26 Jan
We made a choice with the team this morning by betting on the rain ... It did not come
��
So, we killed our tires from the first ... Our goal is clearly to reach the finish now and to score points for @HMSGOfficial

[gorganl2000]

to be fair we have to mention that tyre choice was in conjuction with team.They had informations for rain that didnt come.
Loeb as i know dont have a meteorogist for him.
Bluuford maybe can help us here( even via pm )



edit

Sébastien Loeb
@SebastienLoeb
·
26 Jan
We made a choice with the team this morning by betting on the rain ... It did not come
��
So, we killed our tires from the first ... Our goal is clearly to reach the finish now and to score points for @HMSGOfficial

yeah, i saw that Dimvii, so you do have a point, it was a team decision and maybe a little bit of a gamble to get back 4th if it worked?! who knows?!

[drive]

Thry 'made a bet', eg gambled, and it didnt worked out. End of story. Gamble works that way, eather you win or loose, this time loads of talks that maestro lost his 'mojo', but otherwise could be loads of talk of how great the old maestro is...

[T16]

From Loeb’s Twitter:

As you may have read since yesterday, we will not be putting in the nails this year. After discussions with the team, we decided not to go to @RallySweden . Thanks to them for understanding me. I tell you more in my column very quickly


Looks like he’s claiming it wasn’t the team who made the decision? Loosely worded, so open to interpretation I guess.

[AnttiL]

yeah, i saw that Dimvii, so you do have a point, it was a team decision and maybe a little bit of a gamble to get back 4th if it worked?! who knows?!

Loeb was in 4th position at the end of Saturday. After the first Sunday stage Lappi could only take 1.7 seconds from the 14.1 second gap and it looked like he wouldn't overtake Loeb by driving only. It wasn't until the next stage where Loeb went off road that Lappi got past him. And after that he started cruising to secure finishing because no manu points scoring cars could overtake him anymore.

[mknight]

Loeb was in 4th position at the end of Saturday. After the first Sunday stage Lappi could only take 1.7 seconds from the 14.1 second gap and it looked like he wouldn't overtake Loeb by driving only. It wasn't until the next stage where Loeb went off road that Lappi got past him. And after that he started cruising to secure finishing because no manu points scoring cars could overtake him anymore.

Loeb lost 21s to Lappi over the last two stages on Saturday, so it certainly did look like Lappi can overtake him by driving only.

[AnttiL]

Loeb lost 21s to Lappi over the last two stages on Saturday, so it certainly did look like Lappi can overtake him by driving only.

Like I said, not judging from the result of the first stage.