Esapekka Lappi reflects on the weekend he had in Estonia and is being optimistic that he has found answers to his lack of pace ahead of his home event in Finland.
Hyundai Motorsport chose Lappi to compete with the third car at Rally Estonia as the Korean car brand announced three drivers who will support Thierry Neuville and Adrien Fourmaux this year. Lappi's last outing with the third i20N was at Safari Rally Kenya, which was held four months ago, while he had only one day to prepare himself and to find a good set-up for Rally Estonia and Rally Finland. In general, EP was out of pace at the ninth WRC round and was not able to match his teammates' rhythm while he was fighting with Martins Sesks, Josh McErlean and Elfyn Evans for the sixth place on Friday evening. However, he managed to make some changes to his car set-up and to improve his pace for the final two days of Rally Estonia. Despite his road position, he finished eighth overall behind the seventh Martins Sesks with their gap having been at 27 seconds, but is being optimistic that he will analyze the data from Rally Estonia in order to be in a greater form at Rally Finland as it may be his last outing at the top level.
"We had a challenging weekend in which we struggled with the pace", Lappi said.
"Generally, the car felt fine throughout the days, it was just difficult to understand why the speed and the times weren’t there versus the competition.
"On the other hand, we were able to gain more information and data on the setups and tyres, plus more mileage ahead of Finland, where we hope to be better".
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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