Neuville’s i20 N was struck by a fuel system issue at Safari Rally Kenya that ended any hopes of a podium finish.
The problem resulted in the Belgian losing more than 10 minutes, dropping from second to fifth overall. At the time Neuville, who leads Toyota’s Elfyn Evans by six points in the championship, felt the problem wasn’t related to the rally’s unique set of conditions.
Hyundai team principal Cyril Abiteboul says the team has addressed and understood the problem which has resulted in changes ahead of this weekend’s visit to Croatia’s asphalt stages.
“We will try to make sure he [Thierry] has the right car,” Abiteboul told Autosport. “He had lots of issue in Kenya and most of them have been well addressed and understood.
“There is no particular reason to see them happen here again, but we also saw that it was a bit of a snowball effect from Friday. The first thing we need is to have a clean Friday.
“We still have quite a few explanations [as to what happened in Kenya]. It is one of those things that is difficult to completely reproduce once you are not in Kenya anymore with the conditions we had there.
“We think it [the fuel system issues] was related to the conditions and we have made some changes and we have made a contingency plan to make sure it doesn’t happen again, but let’s see.”
Source: Autosport