Makinen calls for return of mousse inserts to prevent punctures in Turkey
Toyota team principal Tommi Makinen has repeated his call for the return of mousse inserts for tyres at Rally Turkey.
Makinen felt the number of punctures was unacceptable at last weekend’s Marmarisbased event. None of the works teams escaped without deflations and the Finn said those tyrerelated issues were deflecting attention from another close race.
“The problem we have is that this rally is a lottery,” Makinen told MN. “You drive normally and the stones are so sharp, you get the puncture without doing anything. If we could take mousse back to the tyres, this would get rid of this problem. I remember when we had it before, we could drive over everything with no problem. We don’t want to have rallies decided like this [with punctures].”
With base WRC tyres costing €350 (£311) each, Makinen accepted the cost of inserting mousse would mean bigger bills for the teams – but he added that it would only be for Turkey.
“Maybe you could say [mousse is needed in] Sardinia and Mexico,” he said. “But there, sometimes, the punctures are coming more from the mistake from the driver, from cutting a corner or something – I don’t think we should stop this. If the driver makes a mistake and gets a puncture, that’s their fault. But in Turkey, the drivers could do nothing.”
Mousse inserts were banned in the WRC from 2008.
The FIA’S tender process for the WRC’S single tyre supplier from 2021-2024 closed on Friday. Rally director Yves Matton said there had been ‘several’ tenders received, but declined to comment further. The winner will be announced in December.