The team principal of Hyundai Motorsport, Cyril Abiteboul, says that they are still exploring the new WRC point system with its boundaries and its side effects while he reflects on Croatia Rally.
Hyundai Motorsport finished at the third and fourth place overall with Thierry Neuville and Ott Tanak respectively while Andreas Mikkelsen got another top six finish this year. More specifically, Tanak scored twenty points in Croatia from which the ten points came from Saturday, the six from SuperSunday and four from Powerstage. However, Neuville scored 19 points from the fourth WRC round despite the fact that he finished at the lowest place overall, but he was one of the most benefited drivers from the new WRC point system as he took 18 points from Saturday due to the fact that he was at the top of the classification at the end of that day. The most noteworthy thing is that the Belgian is still leading the drivers' championship at the end of Croatia Rally and his gap from the second Elfyn Evans remains at six points as it was at the end of Safari Rally.
"We are leaving Croatia frustrated for what could have been an amazing win from Thierry and Martijn", Abiteboul said.
"Instead, we finish with a roughly similar championship outlook as to when we arrived, with Thierry having a small margin of six points.
"It has been a very entertaining rally but one where risks were taken by both Thierry and Elfyn that didn’t reward them fairly.
"It is a small lesson with this new points-scoring system, of which we are still exploring the boundaries and side effects.
"Ott was one of the biggest winners in that regard on Sunday; he has been trying to get his head around the behaviour of our car on tarmac, and we’re all looking forward seeing him in action on gravel from Portugal.
"Andreas clearly had a challenging weekend, and we must find a way to get him in better shape for his next appearance with us".
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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