Loubet hits by a time penalty for hybrid breach in SS7, but holds his 6th place

The stewards of Rally Estonia gave to Pierre-Louis Loubet a time penalty as he breached the hybrid regulations in Stage 7.

More specifically, the Puma of the Corsican driver released 34 hybrid boosts higher than the allowed maximum value for Stage 7, therefore the stewards decided to give him a five-second time penalty for this infringement. Loubet is in sixth place overall before the stewards' decision and was 14,8 seconds ahead of Takamoto Katsuta after SS10 which means that the first one keeps his position, but their gap is now at 9,8 seconds.

Chris Williams, the technical director of M-Sport Ford, explained to the stewards that the crew made a mistake when choosing the hybrid mapping for SS7. The crew mistakenly chose the mapping which was supposed to be used for SS8 instead of the correct one. The crew had immediately admitted that they had made the mistake by themselves. 

Watch below the stewards' decision:

Photo Credits: M-Sport