Hyundai Motorsport faces an uphill final day of Rallye Deutschland, the tenth round of the 2017 FIA World Rally Championship (WRC), with Hayden Paddon the highest placed of the team’s three crews, down in eighth place overall.
Paddon and co-driver Seb Marshall have demonstrated more speed and confidence through Saturday’s (CEST) nine special stages at Rally Deutschland with two top three stage times and a couple more top five times. However another puncture – this one on the first run through the 41.97km Panzerplatte – saw the pair stop to change the tyre and nearly two minutes on that stage to the frontrunners.
They hold eighth place overall, and are the best placed Hyundai crew after another challenging day for Hyundai Motorsport when Thierry Neuville was forced to relinquish third place after sustaining terminal rear suspension damage during Saturday’s short opening stage and Dani Sordo, restarting after Friday’s crash, pushed to score three stage wins on Saturday afternoon.
“Today’s been a much better day,” Paddon said. “Obviously with the conditions being drier, it was easier to drive with good confidence and actually able to enjoy the stages today. Unfortunately we picked up another puncture on the long Panzerplatte, the first pass, and had to stop and change. We lost almost two minutes, so okay the result was already a bit far behind after yesterday and then this puncture today just made the situation a little worse.
“But in saying that, the performance has been much better today. We’ve been able to set several top three stage times, we’ve have many good competitive split times and this is very encouraging, especially moving forward to the rallies coming up on tarmac which are more to my liking with dry and good grip which gives us confidence.
“I think we’ve made some steps forward. We’re certainly more competitive here this year than what we were last year on these dry stages, and if you take our punctures out of the equation, then we would be up in the top five fighting. We have to look at the positives. Tomorrow we’ll try some different things on the car, use this as a bit of a live test session, see if we can improve some things with both the car setup and my driving and use that for the next rally on tarmac in Spain.”
The run of misfortune continued for Hyundai Motorsport on Saturday morning when Thierry Neuville was forced to retire from third place on the opening stage of the day (SS9, Arena Panzerplatte). The Belgian sustained rear suspension damage to his Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC while negotiating a cut in the stage, bringing his rally to an abrupt halt.
Saturday’s schedule continued onto the monster 41.97km Panzerplatte, a demanding tarmac surface stage lined with the notorious Hinkelstein rocks, and set against Baumholder’s military backdrop. Paddon, who had already dropped time on Friday due a gradual loss of tyre pressure in SS4, picked up another puncture in his first run through the Panzerplatte test.
Both Paddon and Sordo enjoyed a slightly more positive afternoon, with two runs through the short Arena stage followed by Panzerplatte II and a repeat of the 14.78km Freisen and 12.28km Römerstrasse loop.
For Hyundai Motorsport, in its home rally, it was another disappointing day overall, but with some positive signs of pace at times.
The team is determined to bounce back from this recent poor spell and reassert itself in the championship battle. Sunday’s target will be to salvage as many points as possible from a tough weekend.
Classification after Day Two
1 O. Tänak M. Järveoja Ford Fiesta WRC 2:31:32.2
2 A. Mikkelsen A. Jaeger Citroën C3 WRC +21.4
3 S. Ogier J. Ingrassia Ford Fiesta WRC +29.6
4 E. Evans D. Barritt Ford Fiesta WRC +1:48.3
5 J. Hänninen K. Lindström Toyota Yaris WRC +1:52.5
6 C. Breen S. Martin Citroën C3 WRC +2:06.7
7 J.M. Latvala M. Anttila Toyota Yaris WRC +4:04.9
8 H. Paddon S. Marshall Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC +4:31.3
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