Thursday | 12 May 2022
Snow isn’t precisely one thing you’ll count on to be speaking about while you point out pre-event testing for Vodafone Rally de Portugal (19 – 22 May).
But it has been an element for each Toyota Gazoo Racing and Hyundai Motorsport forward of subsequent week’s maiden gravel FIA World Rally Championship spherical of the season.
Both groups have their test base on the grime roads of central Finland and each have been hit by an unusually lengthy winter.
Toyota workforce principal Jari-Matti Latvala mentioned: “We’ve had so much snow this year, it’s going to be quite late in May before the roads are dry and we can make more testing on the gravel. It’s been a long winter and a tough one if we try to make the gravel test.”
Technical director Tom Fowler added: “We couldn’t do any gravel operating in time for Portugal – even when the snow is gone, the roads had been fairly frozen underground.
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“That means they’re not much use for us. Those kind of conditions are good for the winter rally, but unless we start using the studded tyre in Portugal, it doesn’t make so much sense to test for Portugal!”
Both Toyota and Hyundai ought to have their test roads again in gravel-specification quickly and can have the ability to begin quick and free operating quickly after subsequent week’s Matosinhos-based fourth spherical of the WRC.
The two groups examined in Portugal following final month’s Croatia Rally. Hyundai’s work within the week after the Zagreb-based occasion was held on moist roads, whereas situations for Toyota had been drier in the beginning of May.
• Full protection from Vodafone Rally de Portugal will likely be out there on WRC+ All Live right here, together with each stage broadcast because it occurs in addition to key interviews, options and professional evaluation from the service park