Lappi suffered three failures related to the i20 N Rally1’s prop shaft that ultimately curtailed a realistic shot at a podium, while shining a spotlight on the team’s reliability concerns.
Hyundai is aware that it will need to re-design the component in the future to fully fix the problem, but containment measures are in place for this weekend’s fast gravel round in Estonia.
Abiteboul says a subsequent investigation into the failures has revealed that Lappi’s driving style is likely to have been a contributing factor in the failures that occurred only on the #4 entry. But the former Renault Formula 1 boss insists his squad will find a permanent fix for the prop shaft in the future, which will require the use of a homologation joker.
“It is a tough one. We have been looking a lot and we had the opportunity of some tests that we had already planned mainly to work on the set-up characteristic development of the car, but we added to the mix more understanding of this issue,” Abiteboul told Autosport.
“It is a complex issue because clearly there was a combination of factors and probably you have to put on top of these factors some driving style of Esapekka and that is not a criticism.
"It is up to us to design and build a car that can cope with any driving style, and especially a fast one and clearly Esapekka has been quick. It looks like it is a fact that there is something in the way that Esapekka is doing, some combination, and is a bit harsh on the prop shaft.
“We have done a few things that again are under authority without changing anything to homologated parts for this weekend and hopefully that should be good enough. I am 80-90% confident that we will not hear about the prop shaft this weekend.
“In the medium-to-long term clearly we will have to design and most likely homologate a new part but that is when the [homologation] session is going to open because we are very restricted to change things.
“We are still in the process of forming up our [development] plans trying to come up with the best compromise between reliability and performance. We still have a good car in certain conditions and hopefully that is one of those this weekend but in certain conditions we are behind.”
Source: Autosport