Hi, friends!
As I said in the previous post, Ott Tanak is really dominating WRC Arctic Rally Finland and now we have also onboard rally video from the shakedown of the rally.
It seems that Hyundai i20 WRC has a longer wheel base and that suits some special stages better but from what I saw today, and I watched a whole rally LIVE thanks to my last season's co-driver, mechanic and friend Kristijan L because he paid WRC plus for two of us, no one of the drivers in in the mood to catch the rally leader Estonian Ott Tanak.
Hyundai has lower top speed at around 190km per hour while Toyota and M-Sport Ford have top speed around 200km/h. That seems that Hyundai has shorter gearbox and that means shorter gear ratio.
But I think that it is down to the longer wheel base of Hyundai and tire strategy because those guys at Hyundai just thought more how to save the tires to last longer. And that's important because at the end of the loop, lots of drivers said that their tires were gone.
Ogier went off at the end of the day because of the tires. But Ott Tanak saved his tires and finished the day in the lead of almost half a minute.
Watch Estonian in action and learn from the WRC 2019 champion...
Credit for photos and videos to WRC and Youtube
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Cheers!