Evans/Katsuta/Tanak about their car problems after the water splashes on Saturday morning



Elfyn Evans, Ott Tanak and Takamoto Katsuta are talking about the problems they faced on the morning loop of Satuday aftter their passes through the water splashes.

The first victim of the water splash was Takamoto Katsuta in Stage 8 where he damaged the front end of his Yaris and the engine had less power. The Japanese driver tried to repair the cooling system on the road section before SS9 and managed to get going again, but afterwards he had to stop again before the start line of the ninth stage of Rally Italia Sardegna which meant that it was game over for him. The same water splash changed the rally for Ott Tanak who had to drive in EV mode towards the end of SS8. In comparison with Toyota, M-Sport Ford announced Tanak's retirement for the rest of the day before the start of Stage 10 where he and Martin Jarveoja were working on their Puma which might have carried an electrical issue.

On the other hand, Elfyn Evans lost more than two minutes in Stage 10 as his Yaris was carried a damage which was sustained to a water splash, but he was able to complete the two final stages of the morning loop and to return back to the service park. His Yaris suffered from a radiator problem after his pass through the water splash in Stage 10, but he managed to keep his fifth place and to continue on the afternoon.

"Difficult to know, obviously we were not able to get it alive again", Tanak said.

"A bit of a surprise in some way. 

"Clearly we got some water in the engine and after this, it seemed like we somehow did some damage to some electric components as well.

"Basically we blacked out and we had no electric power anymore.

"We didn’t get any water over the bonnet so we didn’t put any splitter into the water. 

"Everything was perfect but seems like there was some other way in which we got the water in and did some damage to some places which was not meant to".

Furthermore, Evans stated about the damage that his Yaris carried after the water splash: "Radiator damage more or less.

"So just trying to manage the leaks and just try and refill the water.

"After that it was just a case of nursing the car through at that point. 

"I’m not really driving at full speed so it’s just getting it through".

Finally, Katsuta said what led him to retire from Saturday stages: "The cooling package was broken but we fixed it.

"Let’s say cooling package seems to be fixed OK but we had a few more things to check properly so then we decided to not continue because there is no point to continue with too slow speed.

"This was the reason that we had to stop".


Source: DirtFish.com


Photo Credits: M-Sport, Toyota

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