SEB MARSHALL READY FOR MY BIGGEST YEAR
“Everything just clicked and felt pretty natural straight away”
More often than not, it’s the minutiae that bring things home to you. The small things that shout the loudest. Seeing my name on the entry list for the Rallye Monte Carlo in a Toyota Yaris WRC seemed strange. Stranger still, alongside Kris Meeke. Strange, but in a very good and very exciting way.
So here we are in 2019 and I’m about to embark on what promises to be the biggest year of my rallying career thus far. A new chapter for me and, I guess, for Kris. But before I start writing this new chapter, I want to rewind a little bit. I want to say a big thanks to Hayden Paddon and a lot of friends at Hyundai Motorsport. That was the team that gave me my big break when I was with Kevin [Abbring] from 2014, and it was with Hayden that I stepped up another level again in 2017.
Of course, Paul [Nagle, Meeke’s former co-driver] has left some very big shoes to fill after first competing with Kris 11 years ago, but his words of advice have been really helpful in this transition period. Hopefully I can continue on his great work.
So, the new chapter. I’ll be honest, as nice as it was to receive the many messages of congratulations on my new job alongside Kris, I feel like I’ve not yet done anything to justify the plaudits. Though of course that’s something that I hope won’t be too long in coming!
As I’m sure a few of you will be aware, Kris and I tested together for the first time just before Christmas. With Kris living in Andorra and me on the right side of the Pennines – Yorkshire of course, naturally – our discussions about working together had been done over the phone. We agreed it would be a good plan to get together and get out in a car before the first test, so I flew out to see him for a couple of days.
Obviously, I’d spent a fair amount of time watching his onboards to see how his notes worked, what sort of speed and rhythm he liked them called at. He’d done the same with me, listening to my delivery and tempo, that kind of thing. That really helped, we had a very good idea what to expect when we drove his road car down the first piece of road to make some notes together.
Kris’s system is similar to Hayden’s and to almost everything I’ve done for the last 10 years, with ‘six’ being a fast corner. I learnt a few new phrases and dreamt up some new symbols for the notes, but these were just nuances, nothing untoward.
The next time I saw Kris was the night before the first day of the Monte Carlo test. There were a few butterflies, but I knew what was coming from one of the current generation World Rally Cars. The only thing was that I hadn’t been on Tarmac in one for almost 16 months – so the first run was a little bit of an eyeopener, but I was soon back into the swing of things.
Talking of eye-opener, this will be my first Monte… The opening round is one of three WRC rounds I’ve never competed on before, the other two being Mexico and Argentina. Fortunately, I have done a preevent test for the event before [with Paddon in 2017] and I’m no stranger to the rally either: last year was the first Monte I’ve missed in nine years. I’ve done ice notes, co-ordinated, weather crew, everything except co-drive. It’s nice that that’s finally set to change in a couple of weeks.
The test itself was great. We had some nice, dry consistent conditions on the opening day, which helped settle us in. Kris has used this road for the last three years, so he knew it quite well and that helped him feel comfortable in the Yaris WRC pretty quickly. It’s amazing how that confidence translates into a relaxed and straightforward atmosphere in the car. It’s hard to describe, but everything just clicked and felt pretty natural straight away.
Just as well really, because the second day brought proper Monte conditions. We were just west of Sisteron and with freezing temperatures on the ground, the rain that fell overnight settled as solid, packed ice on the test stage.
It was straight on with the studs – and they stayed on throughout the morning and until after lunch! The feeling and sensation in the car is incredible when you’re on those studded tyres in such icy conditions. Honestly, you could barely stand up on the road!
As the ice thawed, we were able to work on a whole range of tyre options, crossing tyres and trying lots of variations. On top of that there was plenty of damper and diff evaluations going on to fine tune the set-up.
As the afternoon progressed, the road evolved into a wet and muddy stage, both of which are conditions we’re very likely to encounter later this month and that provided more really useful mileage, experience and data. The only thing we were missing was some time in full snow. But, the weather had been generous to us and given a real wide variety of the kind of conditions we can expect to see on the event itself. And now, well just I can’t wait to get back out there and get the season started.
Kris’s feedback on the car has been so positive already. The thing everybody talks about for Monte Carlo is having a balanced car that gives confidence to the driver and can be a good base across the ever-changing road and grip levels. It feels like we’ve got that.
Those first two days were pretty full-on and, being a test, we met only a small part of the whole team. I’ll meet a few more guys at the season launch at Autosport International next week, and then plenty more new faces when we get to Gap. If my initial impressions and welcome are anything to go by, I’m sure we’ll settle in just fine. My first Monte as a member of the defending world champion team! Who’s interested in the shallow end, anyway…