TEAMS PREPARE 2018 ATTACKS DURING TESTING
Leading wrc crews run on the french alps
The World Rally Championship returned to the French Alps last week as the teams began testing for next month’s 2018 opener, the Monte Carlo Rally.
Toyota and Citroen ran on roads just south of Gap, while Hyundai was closer to Nice and M-sport in Ardeche ( see sidebar). Following three days’ testing, the British team’s Ford Fiesta WRC test car headed east to Sebastien Ogier’s hometown of Gap, where he held his Five Stars Motor Show and demonstrated the car in front of his home fans.
All the cars ran in a variety of conditions last week, but nobody got the full spread of possible Monte Carlo conditions – which is why they all return to France early next month for a final pre-event test ahead of the 2018 season opener.
Citroen’s Kris Meeke ran in icy, cold, wet and very wet conditions, while his team-mate Craig Breen got dry running in the C3 WRC. Toyota new boy Ott Tanak got a mixture of snow, ice and dry asphalt, while Jari-matti Latvala’s running was in full snow. M-sport and Hyundai endured mixed weather, but didn’t see the sort of snow the Toyota team experienced.
Citroen’s Breen was pleased with his first run in the C3 WRC across these roads.
“It was good to get out there and drive the car again,” Breen said. “Kris and I shared one of the days and that was fairly wet, but it was dry for my full day – that was quite helpful for me to be able to drive the car in those mixed conditions. It felt great. The team has worked really hard with the car and we’ve got everything pointing in the right direction. There’s been some valving work done on the suspension dampers and that’s just settled it down on the bumps and made it that bit more compliant. We’re back out in January just before the rally and a bit of snow would be really handy then.”
Latvala was happy with what he found from the Yaris WRC on snow. He and Esapekka Lappi drove for one day each, while Tanak – who’s still bound by his M-sport contract and not allowed to talk about the car until January 1 – got his first taste of Toyota power.
Latvala told MN: “Always when you have a driver from another team, especially a winning team, there is some small bits and pieces that can help your car.
“It’s good to hear what Tanak is thinking of our car. My test was good. We have worked hard on the centre differential and driving in the full snow, everything was working really well.
“It’s quite rare to get these good conditions for the Monte test.”
Latvala wasn’t the only driver to talk of the progress his car had made over the last 12 months. M-sport’s Ford Fiesta WRC dominated this year’s manufacturers’ race and there was plenty of positivity from Welshman Elfyn Evans after the first set-up test for 2018.
He said: “It was good to get back behind the wheel, and really interesting to see the progress we’d made since the first test this time last year. We only had one day of testing, but managed to get a lot of good information that we can take forward to another two days of testing in the lead up to Monte Carlo next month.”
Ogier tested the Fiesta for two days before entertaining his fans on Friday night, with the addition of a special guest joining him and co-driver Julien Ingrassia.
“It was an amazing evening,” said the world champion. “It was such a great feeling for us to celebrate at
home in front of our first audience, who have been following us for many years. We are very proud to have the chance to do this. Thank you everyone for the support and for this nice organisation, we enjoyed this evening a lot. And thank you also to Ari Vatanen for coming – it was an honour to have him with us.” ● As Motorsport News closed for press Eric Camilli looked most likely to join M-sport as the third driver for the opening round of the season in Monte Carlo, making his debut in one of the new generation World Rally Cars.