Evans retains the lead in the WRC Rally of Chile after a failed protest from Hyundai

Toyota’s Elfyn Evans has retained the lead in the Rally Chile after stewards rejected a protest by the Hyundai World Rally Championship team over the redistribution of an imaginary stage time.

Hyundai’s Ott Tanak finished Friday’s six stages with a margin of 0.4 seconds over Evans before the stewards received a request to review the notional time awarded to Evans following the cancellation of the first stage.

Only Thierry Neuville, Tanak and Sebastien Ogier successfully navigated the first stage (Pulperia, 19.72 km) before officials were forced to cancel the test due to spectator safety reasons.

Imaginary times, based on Neuville’s effort (the slowest time), were awarded to the rest of the Rally1 field, who had to complete the stage in road mode. However, this could be revised after the test was passed a second time later in the day (stage four).

After these runs, the course instructor received a request to review the allotted time assigned to Evans.

After reviewing the times recorded on the second leg of the stage, Evans, M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux and Toyota’s Sami Pajari have been given new imaginary times for the first stage.

As a result, Evans’ new time was two seconds faster than Tanak instead of 1.4 seconds slower, giving the Toyota driver a revised rally lead of three seconds.

Hyundai then filed a protest against the registrar of the route decision on Friday evening. After a hearing attended by representatives from Hyundai and Toyota, the stewards opted to dismiss the protest, ensuring Evans’ reallocated imaginary time heading into Saturday’s six stages.

“The demonstrator’s representative explained that the stages (SS1 and SS4) were run differently and this may have been the cause of the differences in the respective stage times,” the stewards’ report said.

“Sir. (Tolga) Ozakinci (Hyundai team manager) stated that, in their opinion, the ideal principle for assigning imaginary times should be based on the fastest stage time achieved by the crew to complete SS1 (crew of car No. 17 Sebastien Ogier /Vincent Landais) instead of the slowest time achieved by the crew to complete SS1 (i.e. the crew of car bo. 11 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe).

“Sir. Ozakinci agreed with the chairman that the authority to judge fairness naturally lies with the Registrar, as stated in Article 52 of the 2024 FIA WRC Sporting Regulations.

“However, the competitor believed that the principle they proposed was also fair and should be taken into consideration. Consequently, they felt that the race commissioners should adopt their proposed principle, as opposed to that of the race director.

Ott Tänak, Martin Järveoja, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1

Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images

“The FIA ​​Sports Delegate stated that the principle normally used within the WRC to allocate notional times is to take into account the time achieved for the stage by the slowest car in the class rather than by the fastest car. “He also explained that there are other methods. which can be used to calculate and determine a fair allocation of notional times based on various criteria.

“After SS4, the race director determined that only car No. 33 had improved its time on SS4 and therefore decided not to take SS4’s stage time into account for allocation purposes. However, after receiving a request from the concerned party to reconsider the theoretical time allocated in COC Notice No. 1, the race director reviewed the stage times achieved on SS4 and issued COC Notice No. 2 to reassign the stage times for cars designate 33, 16 and 5 accordingly.

“The FIA ​​Sports Delegate stated that they considered that the allocation of imaginary times for SS1 was in accordance with established procedure. “He acknowledged that the procedure for assigning imaginary times is not an exact science and opens the door to alternative interpretations, with a possibility that each different party may view fairness differently.

“In rebuttal, the protester considered car No. 33 should be assigned a slower imaginary time than that assigned in COC Notice No. 2. They suggested that the determination of imaginary times should be done in a subjective manner and not objectively.”

In response to Hyundai’s argument, the stewards conceded that the demonstrator’s “suggested method of calculating the imaginary times for the affected cars on SS1, as set out in their protest, could be adopted, but are of the opinion that this is only one method of calculating the imaginary times.” .

In summary, the stewards concluded that “the method adopted by the Clerk of the Course to allocate notional times for SS1, as specified in CoC Notice No. 2, was fair and reasonable.

“The demonstrator has therefore failed to establish that the imaginary times assigned by the race director to the cars involved in CoC notice No. 2 were objectively unfair.

“Accordingly, the notional times assigned to the cars remain as set out in CoC Notice No. 2.”