New Hyundai boss Cyril Abiteboul maintains that a backfired attempt to employ team orders to benefit Thierry Neuville’s World Rally Championship title aspirations in Sweden was the correct call.
In only the second round of the season, the South Korean marque tried to switch the positions of Neuville and Craig Breen ahead of the final Power Stage.
With Breen sitting 8.5 seconds behind Tanak before the final stage, Hyundai chose to deliberately check the Irishman into the final stage a minute late to trigger a 10s penalty to place him 0.5s adrift of Neuville. But a mistake from the Belgian meant that he dropped back behind Breen into third.
“To a certain degree I think we did the right thing,” argued Abiteboul. “For a team perspective when you are fighting for a championship…
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Autosport (Digital) - 1 Issue, 16/02/23