The new rally director of FIA, Andrew Wheatley, reveals that FIA will rethink the hybrid sporting regulations after Ott Tanak's and Elfyn Evans's retirements at Rally Sweden.
Ott Tanak and Elfyn Evans had to retire from Rally Sweden on Saturday and on Sunday respectively when a red light appeared which meant that they had to stop immediately for safety precautions.
However, their hybrid issues were uncleared as both of them could not detect which was the exact problem with their car and lost valuable points for the championship.
In addition to that, Hyundai and Toyota stated after the end of Rally Sweden that FIA should make changes to the hybrid regulations as they are unclear and unfair for the drivers.
"Monte Carlo was a really great rally, there were challenges with the hybrid but Sweden was more complicated," Wheatley said.
"We got through Sweden and there is no question what happened with Ott has been right at the top of our focus because there wasn’t a clear solution.
"Normally when you see a problem, the engineers can tell you very quickly that it is A, B or C.
"With Ott it wasn’t clear and it continues to be the subject of a very in-depth understanding so we know how to find the issue and go forward.
"We understand what the consequences were and at the World Motor Sport Council this weekend we will be making some proposals in order to not only be able to work on the sporting side but alongside the technical.
"This will reduce any impact of that happening in the future and hopefully by Saturday we will be able to share some of the results of what the World Motor Sport Council has decided.
"I would say 75% of the world with hybrid is ‘what if scenarios’ and you hope it will never come to that scenario.
"You try to cover as many options as possible but you will never cover every option.
"On the Sunday of Sweden we sat down with the teams to understand how we can improve the safety and the safety processes, because when Ott had a red light, we need to understand how the system works.
"Secondly, from the technical side we need to know what the issue was and how to fix it, and thirdly, from the sporting side, we can make tweaks to the sporting regulations so that we don’t create the big step of issues that Ott had.
"I’m quite confident.
"The key is making sure that all the stake holders communicate as much as possible and we keep that open.
"We have to make sure we take the suitable steps to keep learning and evolving".
Source: Motorsport.com
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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