Hyundai has apologised to Thierry Neuville and is planning to change “everything” on his car after a suspected turbo related issue dented his World Rally Championship title hopes in Japan.
Championship leader Neuville can clinch the crown by scoring six points at the season finale, but that prospect has been made much tougher after his i20 N suffered a mysterious loss of power in stage four on Friday.
Faced with only a tyre fitting zone in between the stage loops, Hyundai was unable to fix the problem dropping Neuville from second to 15th, some 7m41.3s adrift of title rival, team-mate and rally leader Ott Tanak.
Hyundai was surprised by the issue given its strong reliability this year with Neuville’s only other technical fault coming in Kenya.
The Korean marque’s WRC programme manager Christian Loriaux believes the problem is related to the car’s turbo after confirming Neuville lost boost pressure in stage four. He is also confident the engine hasn’t incurred any damage.
“Thierry actually had a brand new turbo for this event and the rest of the things are pretty much proven parts,” Loriaulx told Motorsport.com.
“We know he lost the boost pressure and we know the wastegate regulation is not working. Is it the electric coil or box or the wiring in between? We don’t know. We are going to try and figure that out tonight and change everything to make sure we fix the problem.”
Thierry Neuville, Martijn Wydaeghe, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1
Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images
Loraiux was quick to apologise to Neuville before praising how the Belgian handled the problem that arrived at the worst moment in the title fight.
“We are all pushing for everything so sometimes a driver makes a mistake, sometimes the team make mistake but it is very frustrating. We have had good reliability this year,” he added.
“This is really a blow and very frustrating as it puts us under pressure and in a difficult situation and for that we want to really apologise to Thierry.
“He was doing an incredible job for the team and we didn’t expect him to be where he was today at the start and we were expecting him to be steady.
“Despite the problem he still reacted in a very professional way and kept his calm and he brought the car back without losing his temper which is admirable.
“[If] I couldn’t do it I would kick the steering wheel and shout at everyone, but again we apologise. It is not…
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