Limited testing makes it challenging for young drivers to ascend to the WRC’s premier class.
Teemu Suninen, who moved up to the World Rally Championship’s top tier mid-last season, knows this all too well.
Current Rally1 cars are so radically different from those in the lower classes that it takes an unreasonably long time for drivers from those lower classes to get comfortable with them.
“The test limitations are difficult,” the Finn told DirtFish.
“Still, I think most people don’t realize it’s not easy to jump to the car for half-day or one day and then go to the rally. There’s not enough testing,” Suninen continued.
“These current cars are very different to what we had for the previous 10 years,” Suninen said.
Suninen competed in four rallies in the WRC’s top tier last season in Hyundai’s Rally1 car. His campaign started in the summer in Estonia and Finland, but it wasn’t until his third event in Chile that the Finnish driver felt in tune with the car.
“In Chile, in my third rally in Rally1 car, I felt I started to understand the hybrid and then I could focus to just my driving and then that changed the whole thing,” Suninen illustrated.
After Estonia, Finland, and Chile, the surface changed from gravel to tarmac, presenting yet another completely new challenge.
“But for the next event in Central European Rally it was different again – the car works different on Tarmac. I think we could find an extra day of testing to help the new drivers coming,” Suninen hoped.
Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala agrees with Suninen.
“Currently, each driver has only one test day per rally. That’s too little,” Latvala said.
“It’s very difficult to come and test on such a schedule,” Latvala continued.
According to Latvala, one additional test day would not bring teams an unreasonable increase in costs.
“The biggest cost is the logistics of getting the team to the location. Let’s say you are testing in Portugal; once you are on site, if you do one day then a second day doesn’t actually make that much difference to the costs involved,” Latvala said.
