Thierry Neuville says that Hyundai did not bring the improvements that he asked for at Croatia Rally and finds similarities between the behavior of his i20N in Croatia this year with the tarmac events of 2022.
The Belgian driver was the leader of Croatia Rally after Stage 2 when Sebastien Ogier had to stop and to change a wheel during that stage until Stage 11 where he went off the road and hit a tree in the process resulting in damaging the rear left suspension of his i20N and being unable to continue for the rest of Saturday. He was the fastest driver in three from twenty stages in Croatia, but he did not feel comfortable inside his car as he mentioned many times that he was struggling with the balance, especially with the rear, and made some changes to the damper clicks ahead of SS7. After the fourth round of the championship, Neuville is in fifth place at the overall standings with 58 points, 11 points behind the leaders Sebastien Ogier and Elfyn Evans.
"I mean we have a lot of ups and downs between the rallies", Neuville said.
"We can see that some rallies we are strong and some rallies we are really below the pace.
"Here this weekend it was very difficult, very challenging.
"Not only because the roads and conditions are very challenging but also because I couldn’t feel comfortable in the car since the beginning and I never really got 100% comfortable.
"So it made it difficult but we kept fighting.
"I made a little mistake, so we need to work on that.
"The feedback was similar to Monte Carlo.
"It was similar to some Tarmac events last year.
"And we didn’t get the improvement we were asking for.
"So we’re gonna work on that.
"I think the team could see this weekend again that there is room for improvement and we need to do that".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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