TG’s rally car lives!
A real rally driver tests out our homebuilt Hyundai i20 racer. Suggests many, many improvements
TG and its big mouth. You set yourself a challenge, then you fnd yourself in a rally car, with a pro. Better step up to the plate...
remember this bit, it’s difcult, you have to go slow through the frst corner to get good drive out of the long right. And there’s a big bump on the inside that upsets the car.”
I think that, of all a top-line rally driver’s skills, recollection is the one I’m most in awe of. Thierry Neuville, Hyundai’s lead WRC driver, hasn’t driven Goodwood’s 1.5-milelong rally stage for more than two years, and yet can remember sections in astonishing detail. It’s just one of the things that sets him apart from, well, me.
But that’s the purpose of today. Thierry (who’s from Belgium) has agreed to lend TG a hand. He’s going to drive our rally car and give us some tips on its set-up and behaviour, then he’s going to hop into the passenger seat and I’m going to show him how it’s really done (ahem)... Everything matters today – it’s my one chance to pick the brains of a bona fde rally winner (Thierry gave Hyundai its maiden WRC victory at Rally Germany in August), to understand how to read the road, the conditions, cope with pace notes and learn new techniques.
It’s a baking-hot day, and in the pursuit of lightness our rally car has no cooling fan, just a screen demister fan. Which is heated. We’re basically strapping ourselves into a
“Igreenhouse. We can’t open the windows because, if we do, the car will be flled with dust so thick it’ll seem like we’ve pulled the pin on a smoke grenade. I have a million questions but decide, as I strap myself into the passenger seat of our little Hyundai (still with only 82bhp right now), that it might be best to just sit back and listen to his pearls of wisdom.
“You know, this is a fun car,” he tells me. Some silence follows, then, “Yes, it’s good fun to drive.” To be honest, I’d been counting on something a bit more illuminating.
But Thierry is not one to jump to hasty conclusions. He does a couple of laps, all very neat and tidy, then experiments with the handbrake and diferent lines, braking points, throttle positions, etc. He’s clearly in testing mode. When we come in, everyone crowds round – the WRC mechanics and the guys from 586 Engineering who have built our car and are clearly anxious about the feedback.
Then he dissects the car: “The brakes need more bite. Also the handbrake. The gearing is very low, but you have not so much power, and here is very tight, so that’s OK. The dif is working nicely. I’d like a quicker rack for the steering, but it’s OK, you know, it’s fun. For a car with so little power, I enjoyed it.”
That’ll do us. The crowd disperses. And then Thierry reminds me of something: “A lot of the car is up to you and how you prefer it to be set up. You need to make sure all the controls are exactly where you want them – the seat, gearlever, steering wheel, everything. If you want the car to have more understeer, oversteer, whatever, just ask – the team can make the car feel however you like.”
Good point, but right now I’m rather worried that having been pretty blunt in his opinions of the car, he’s going to be as tough on me. This could be unpretty. At least he has the good grace to look nonchalant, informing me that he hasn’t been a passenger in a rally car for over a year, when he was riding shotgun with another WRC driver who “was really on the limit, and then over it”. They crashed, and quite spectacularly, by all accounts.
“THE SECRET TO DRIVING THIS CAR IS TO CONSERVE MOMENTUM”
There’s nowhere to crash at Goodwood – or rather, nowhere to crash spectacularly. It’s like driving through a drainage ditch, high banks everywhere, so you rattle along like a ping-pong ball down a drainpipe. But this is a test in itself – there’s no margin for error if you’re going to keep your body panels looking pristine.
Anyway, having paid full attention while he was driving, I give it my best shot. However, my inputs seem larger, the car doesn’t seem to be behaving as deftly or carrying so much speed. To counter that, I try getting on the throttle earlier through corners and trusting the dif to work harder.
Thierry puts up with this for a couple of laps before his voice crackles through the headset: “You need to be more patient with the throttle. Even with the dif, you need to get more of the corner completed before you use the power. Try to carry more speed into the corner, maybe a bit still on the brakes as you turn.” The secret to driving quickly in a car with so little power is, somewhat unsurprisingly, learning how to conserve momentum. No famboyance here, just neatness and tidiness. Not very McRae, not very sideways, but still a lot of fun.
He mentions the importance of looking as far ahead as possible, the basics of reading stages (watch out under trees for roots and fallen leaves; ruts are good; darker areas of road tend to be wetter and therefore more slippery; certain trees like certain soils, which means such-and-such for grip). There’s so much to take in that after a while my brain gets information blindness.
For a change of scene, he takes me for a ride in his car. Now the thing to remember here is that our i20 is still very much a road car. I mention it now because I’ve stopped seeing it like that, but it’s immediately obvious the WRC car is a diferent beast altogether. You sit in an entirely diferent place within the car, nothing is recognisable, while mine still has electric windows that actually work. And the way it goes down a dirt track? Mind-bending. It’s not just that it has more power and puts it through all four wheels, it just attacks while mine deals with.
It’s attitude as much as speed that separates the two. The WRC feels savage and unstoppable; mine feels valiant but ultimately very stoppable. Beyond that, as I sit here in this manic, thrashing, turboed tumble dryer, I can’t get my head round the skills that must be necessary to process and respond to the information coming into Thierry’s head. I try thinking of the pace notes I’d be calling if I were Nicolas Gilsoul. That lasts precisely “60, over crest and three right into two left, rocks inside and fo…”
I need to go away and digest what’s happened today. Digest, de-dust and de-sweat. I’m physically and mentally exhausted, unable to fgure much out right now, let alone how Thierry’s hair manages to emerge from his helmet so pristine. But I do feel we’re on the right lines. Thierry has been politely encouraging about my driving and actually quite enthusiastic about our car. What’s needed now is more practice and experience – and I don’t think I can get enough of that ahead of Wales Rally GB.