HYUNDAI STILL BULLISH DESPITE BIG TESTING S HUNT FOR L OE B
Sebastien Loeb’s testing crash ahead of next week’s Rally Sweden had no impact on the squad’s roundtwo preparation, according to his Hyundai team.
The Frenchman went off the road on one of his final runs in the i20 Coupe WRC test car on Thursday. Sources in the area of northern Sweden reported the car rolled over a snowbank causing significant damage. Both Loeb and co-driver Daniel Elena were uninjured in the incident, which concluded their first snow test since 2012.
The team worked through the night on the i20 and had it ready for Andreas Mikkelsen to begin his preparations the following day. Last year’s Rally Sweden winner Thierry Neuville had completed his running time in the car ahead of Loeb.
A team spokesman said: “The guys on site did a good job in keeping the car fully operational for the continuation of the final test day with Andreas.”
Last week was a busy one with three of the four factory teams in action in the Scandinavian snow. While Hyundai was working in Sweden, M-sport and Toyota were doing the same across the border in Finland.
Kris Meeke and Seb Marshall enjoyed their first extended running in a Sweden-specification Yaris WRC on roads close to Jyvaskyla.
Marshall told MN: “Kris felt very comfortable in the car straight away. We worked off a set-up from both Ott [Tanak] and Jari-matti [Latvala] and then focused on springs and dampers with some work on the differential settings. I don’t think we’ve done anything dramatically different. The car felt well balanced. It did everything we could have asked of it.”
Marcus Gronholm stepped aboard the test Yaris for a further day of testing before his return next week. Once again, he and Timo Rautiainen impressed with their pace, despite heavy snow during the day.
Gronholm’s former mentor at Toyota George Donaldson was present at the test. He told MN: “Marcus was driving really well. The speed of the car is still going to take some getting used to – he and Timo flew a little further in some places than they probably expected – but it was good. He’s still not going to be drawn into anything, though.”
Citroen will run its tests for Sebastien Ogier and Esapekka Lappi this week.