Quote Originally Posted by flat_right View Post
This is not true. Why would they bother testing at all if it didn't accomplish anything, especially for a brand-new car? The main issue was that Hyundai started very late. As a result, they had only a limited number of days to test everything. Because Neuville crashed so badly, they couldn't test their new car on gravel at all, which meant they had to homologate the car without knowing how it would perform on gravel. If they had done some testing, they would have had some idea of what was working and what wasn't, giving them a better base to move forward. Instead, they had to guess and homologate based on what they had.
No, you can't fix something so flawed with just few more test days, especially because they were already running late. Even if let's say the suspension broke during testing (they were testing on asphalt, vast majority of their suspension problems were on gravel), they would have assumed it was just a regular failure. And even if they realized a bigger flaw, would have they been able to change much in such a short time before homologation? Hardly.
The reality is that neither Tanak nor Neuville could have won the championship driving that "amazing quality" Hyundai against Kalle's Toyota, not in a milllion years.