The stewards of Rally Estonia gave to Ott Tanak a time penalty for a sporting regulation breach at the end of the morning loop of the second day.
More specifically, the Estonian did not drive on full electric mode inside the HEV Zone as defined in the Road Book part 1 when arriving at TC1A, therefore he receives a 10-second time penalty which will be applied at TC1B.
The Hyundai driver was second overall at the end of Stage 5 and was 6,2 seconds ahead of third Kalle Rovanpera, but after his time penalty the first one will drop to third place overall and their gap is now at 3,8 seconds.
Pablo Marcos, the team manager of Hyundai Motorsport, stated that Martin Jarveoja was doubrful whether to switch to HEV mode due to an uphill slope after car wash while the last one did not inform his team manager for this incident due to a mistake.
In fact, the car #8 was switched into HEV mode only at TC1A while Hyundai and Compact Dynamics confirmed that there was no technical issue with Tanak's car.
Read below the stewards' decision:
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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