Toyota’s Elfyn Evans has held onto the Rally Chile lead after stewards rejected a protest from the Hyundai World Rally Championship group towards the reallocation of a notional stage time.
Hyundai’s Ott Tanak ended Friday’s six phases with a 0.4-second margin over Evans earlier than stewards acquired a request to overview the notional time issued to Evans following the cancellation of stage one.
Solely Thierry Neuville, Tanak and Sebastien Ogier efficiently navigated by stage one (Pulperia, 19.72km) earlier than officers have been compelled to cancel the take a look at on spectator security grounds.
Notional occasions primarily based on Neuville’s effort (the slowest time), have been awarded to the remainder of the Rally1 subject, who have been compelled to finish the stage in street mode. This was, nonetheless, topic to revision after the second go of the take a look at later within the day (stage 4).
Following these runs, the clerk of the course acquired a request to overview the allotted time awarded to Evans.
After reviewing the occasions posted within the second go of the stage, Evans, M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux and Toyota’s Sami Pajari have been issued new notional occasions for stage one.
In consequence, Evans’ new time was two seconds quicker than Tanak as a substitute of being 1.4s slower, handing the Toyota driver a revised three-second rally lead.
Hyundai subsequently lodged a protest towards the clerk of the course’s resolution on Friday evening. Following a listening to attended by representatives from Hyundai and Toyota, stewards elected to reject the protest, guaranteeing Evans’ reallocated notional time stands heading into Saturday’s six phases.
“The protester’s consultant defined that the phases [SS1 and SS4] have been performed in another way and this will have accounted for variations within the respective stage occasions,” learn the stewards report.
“Mr. [Tolga] Ozakinci [Hyundai team manager] acknowledged that, of their opinion, the perfect precept for allocating notional occasions ought to be primarily based on the quickest stage time achieved by the crew to finish SS1 [crew of car no. 17 Sebastien Ogier/Vincent Landais] somewhat than the slowest time achieved by the crew to finish SS1 [i.e. crew of car bo. 11 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe].
“Mr. Ozakinci agreed with the chairperson that the authority judging equity lies with the clerk in fact’s willpower, as acknowledged inside Article 52 of the 2024 FIA WRC sporting laws.
“Nevertheless, the competitor believed that the precept proposed by them was additionally truthful and ought to be thought of. Consequently, it was their opinion that the stewards ought to undertake their urged precept as towards that adopted by the clerk of the course.
Ott Tänak, Martin Järveoja, Hyundai World Rally Staff Hyundai i20 N Rally1
Photograph by: McKlein / Motorsport Photos
“The FIA sporting delegate acknowledged that the precept often adopted inside the WRC to allocate notional occasions has been to contemplate the time achieved for the stage by the slowest automotive within the class as a substitute of the quickest automotive.“He additionally defined that there are different strategies that could possibly be used to calculate and set up a good allocation of notional occasions primarily based on totally different standards.
“After SS4, the clerk of the course decided that solely automotive no. 33 had improved its time on SS4 and as such determined to not take into account the stage time of SS4 for allocation functions. Nevertheless, after receiving a request from the involved celebration to rethink the notional time allotted in COC Notification No. 1, the clerk of the course reviewed the stage occasions achieved on SS4 and issued COC Notification No. 2 to reallocate stage occasions for vehicles 33, 16, and 5 accordingly.
“The FIA sporting delegate acknowledged that they considered the allocation of notional occasions for SS1 to be in step with the established process.“He acknowledged that the process of allocating notional occasions shouldn’t be a precise science and opens the door to different interpretations, with a chance that every totally different celebration views equity in another way.
“In rebuttal, the protester thought of that automotive no. 33 ought to be allotted a slower notional time than that allotted in COC Notification No. 2. They urged that the setting of notional occasions ought to be performed in a subjective manner and never objectively.”
In response to Hyundai’s argument, the stewards admitted that the protestor’s “proposed methodology for calculating the notional occasions for the vehicles affected on SS1 as set out of their protest could possibly be adopted, however take into account that this is just one methodology for calculating the notional occasions”.
In abstract, the stewards concluded that “the tactic adopted by the Clerk of the Course to allocate for SS1 notional occasions as laid out in CoC Notification No. 2 was truthful and cheap.
“The protester has subsequently failed to ascertain that the notional occasions allotted by the clerk of the course to the affected vehicles by CoC Notification No. 2 was unfair in an goal manner.
“Accordingly, the notional occasions allotted to the vehicles stay as set out in CoC Notification No. 2.”
