Speed completely lost and on top of that, team orders: Esapekka Lappi’s WRC event is pure agony – “I feel like crying”

Esapekka Lappi's day at Rally Latvia was miserable.
Esapekka Lappi
Esapekka Lappi. Photo: Dufour Fabien/ Hyundai Motorsport GmbH
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For some reason, the speed of the driver from Finland was completely lost. Lappi was the slowest of the Rally1 drivers, trailing the leader by almost one and a half minutes. On the final stage of the day, Lappi deliberately let his teammate Thierry Neuville pass, so that the championship leader wouldn’t have to sweep the roads tomorrow.

“If you watch the last 500 meters from the onboard camera, there was definitely some slowing down. We already knew in advance, and I thought during the day that this would happen if things didn’t get better. And they didn’t get better at all. It’s understandable in that sense, this doesn’t matter to us,” Lappi explained.

On Saturday, it will be Lappi’s turn to suffer in the role of the first car on the route. It might be even more painful.

“Tomorrow’s sweeping task will be even tougher than today, but there’s nothing that can be done. I should have driven better. We’ll try to enjoy it, if we can get the car better. Then it might actually be quite nice. I definitely have to improve. I feel like crying, but I haven’t shed a tear yet,” Lappi lamented.

Lappi couldn’t get the car settings to his liking all day. Since there wasn’t a proper service break on Friday, the options were limited.

“It’s a really bad feeling. It’s not as bad as if I had crashed into the bushes. My brain is completely exhausted. I’ve been thinking so much about what the cause is and why it’s not working,” Lappi wondered.

“The tyres wear out and degrade much more than others, and still don’t grip. It spins a lot and overheats, causing the tyres to wear excessively. That needs to be fixed to get grip. That could be the key, but I just don’t know where to find the grip.”

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