This season, Lappi has been alternating in Hyundai’s third car with Andreas Mikkelsen and Dani Sordo. The trio’s task has been to support the team’s star drivers, Thierry Neuville and Ott Tänak, and to gather as many points as possible for the manufacturers’ championship.
Back in February in Sweden, it seemed that Lappi was well-suited to this role. The Finn secured his second career victory in Umeå. But after that it has been quiet.
In March, Lappi faced bad luck at the Safari Rally, then his pace was completely missing in Latvia, and in Finland, Lappi crashed into a tree.
This situation doesn’t look good for the Finn, as Hyundai might very well change its strategy for next season, possibly running only one regular driver in the third car.
Team Principal Cyril Abiteboul remains cautious in his assessments regarding what might happen next season.
“At this point in time, we need to first make a fair assessment of what we’ve done this year. I think it’s not the time to start drawing conclusions about what we’ve done,” Abiteboul said to Rallyjournal.com.
“We are still in the championship, and it’s still very tight, so I don’t want to talk too much about that,” Abiteboul continues.
But it’s also true that Hyundai’s rotating drivers haven’t performed as well as hoped.
“We are also expecting more from Dani, from EP, and from Andreas,” Abiteboul admitted.
Abiteboul doesn’t want to be too harsh on Lappi. The Finn has also had some bad luck this season, and the team’s operations haven’t supported him in the best possible way.
“Kenya wasn’t his fault. He actually did quite well in Kenya, but again, we had reliability issues,” Abiteboul said.
Abiteboul also openly admitted that the team hasn’t managed Lappi’s programme well enough. Lappi drove in Sweden and Kenya but didn’t get back behind the wheel of a rally car until the summer. Before the Rally Latvia, Lappi participated in one preparatory event in Lithuania. However, the gap between rallies was simply too long.
“And there was a big gap, which I think we managed poorly. Yes, we gave him a rally to dust himself off and stretch his legs a bit, but I don’t think it was enough. Moving forward, we need to be careful about these gaps in the calendar,” Abiteboul said.
Lappi has also made too many mistakes over the past couple of seasons, but Abiteboul feels it’s still not the right time to make a final assessment of the Finn’s performance.
“Latvia was difficult for him, and we also took some time to find the right setup. And in Finland we were struggling with the setup. So I think it’s a bit difficult to draw a direct conclusion on EP, apart from the fact that, with the level of competition out there, these big gaps in the calendar are not good.”
