Thierry Neuville says that he was not scared by the speed that Toyota drivers showed at Rallye Monte Carlo last weekend and gives an example to what happened with Hyundai and their rivals at Rally Spain and Rally Japan in 2022.
The Toyota drivers dominated in the stages of Rallye Monte Carlo as they set the fastest time in 16 from 18 stages with Sebastien Ogier writting his name in nine of them. Thierry Neuville was the only WRC driver who stopped the domination of Toyota as he set the benchmark in two stages while Ott Tanak was very close to steal the best time from Kalle Rovanpera in Powerstage.
However, it must be mentioned that the Belgian said that they had to stick in one specific set-up for the first round of this year's championship which was not suitable for the dry conditions in Alps. The questionmark is how much the WRC teams can develop their Rally1 cars since FIA decided to reduce the testing days from 28 to 21 which means that each driver has the chance to test his car only seven days for the whole season.
"Not so much", Neuville answered if he was scared by Toyota's speed.
"We saw in Spain last year they were stronger than us and we were 40s behind the leader, but we went to Japan and we were stronger than them and won the rally by nearly a minute.
"For sure, if you look back 12 months it is a forward step but if you look back one and half months in Japan we were stronger, but here we were a bit less.
"The profile didn’t suit us so well with the set up we have chosen or the weather conditions either, so we were a bit off the pace all weekend long.
"I don’t think we need to be concerned.
"We know we have some work left to do.
"With only one day testing for such a rally we decided to go in a direction of a car that works in all the conditions but we found ourself on a rally that was completely dry and a proper tarmac event.
"I think the speed wasn’t that great but it wasn’t that bad, so there is no reason to be alarmed too much".
Source: Motorsport.com
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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