The team principal of Hyundai Motorsport, Cyril Abiteboul, says that his team will examine the mechanical issue on Thierry Neuville's car which costed him a podium finish in Portugal.
Thierry Neuville was in third position overall at the end of Saturday and Esapekka Lappi was set to chase his teammate on Sunday for the lowest place of the podium. However, the final day of Rally de Portugal did not start in a positive way for the Belgian as his car suffered from a turbo issue since the opening stage of Sunday resulting in losing more than one minute in all stages and eventually dropping fifth overall behind Lappi and Ott Tanak. In addition to that, he was not able to score any extra point in Powerstage which means that he took 10 points from his fifth place and is currently fifth overall on drivers' standings, 20 points behind the championship leader Kalle Rovanpera.
"For a large part of the weekend, we had three cars competing in the top five, which was good as we know something can always happen here", Abiteboul said.
"Unfortunately on Sunday morning, it did with Thierry who lost precious points due to reliability issues, and that needs to be investigated further".
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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