The technical director of Hyundai Motorsport, Francois-Xavier Demaison, says his team asked from its drivers to decrease their pace in order to save the transmission which is the weakest point of the car.
The Alzenau-based team had a dream start in Kenya as Esapekka Lappi and Ott Tanak were second and third overall respictively at the end of Friday morning, but they were forced to retire on the second loop of the day due to car problems. More specifically, the Finn driver had to pull over his i20N 9.8 Km into Stage 5 as he thought initially that the transmission was broken, but eventually his mechanics confirmed that the real cause behind his retirement was a broken gearbox. It is a fact that the Hyundai drivers are stuggling with the i20N in Kenya and it seems that the Puma and the Yaris are more reliable than the i20N there. Finally, one remarkable thing is that EP broke four propshafts during Safari Rally a year ago, but the team managed to find a solution to this while they have to wait for the next homologation window to bring a potential upgrade to the transmission area.
"The casing exploded", Demaison said.
"We know the transmission is the weak point of this car.
"It’s not been developed and validated properly.
"Last year was the propshaft and now it’s the transmission.
"With the current rules and the number of jokers, we’re a bit stuck.
"That’s the situation.
"All they can do was drive at 80%, which is not what we want to do.
"We’ll have to compromise a bit the performance and not be 100% everywhere".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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