The technical director of Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT, Tom Fowler, says that Kalle Rovanpera's Yaris carried an issue before the start of the final day in Sweden and believes that this should not have happened.
World Rally Championship entered a new rule for this season and, according to this, the 15-minute morning services are no longer permitted, therefore the teams have only the night services to get their cars ready for the next day of a rally. Kalle Rovanpera reported at the end of the opening stage on Sunday that he faced an issue with his Yaris on the road section before SS16, but he and Jonne Halttunen managed to fix their car. As morning services are no longer included to a rally itinerary, the crews face a challenge, because if they face a problem with their car on the road sections after their leaving Service Park, then they have to fix it on their own instead of their mechanics who would probably detect some failure during the morning services.
"Basically, they bled the brakes", Fowler said.
"It’s something which drivers do almost every day, but I suppose the difference in this case is that normally they bleed the brakes after stages because they’ve got too hot or the pads have settled down or whatever, some minor thing which happens regularly through usage, they bleed the brakes.
"But in this case, obviously the car had just come from service the night before so it should have been perfect for him and it wasn’t because we had noticed something at the last minute in the service last night, and I suppose the thing that makes it interesting is that we now don’t have the 15-minute service in the morning.
"So normally we would have fixed that this morning and he would have known nothing about it.
"They expect just to drive to the first stage and crack on, but they had to put something else into their routine so… we’re not proud of it, of course, but these things happen".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: Toyota
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