Esapekka Lappi once again has to quickly learn the ropes of a new car before the start of the season.
Esapekka Lappi decided to switch to the Hyundai camp for next year after receiving an offer from the Korean manufacturer to drive all the World Cup rallies of the season. This is already the fourth different racing car for Lapland in the last five years.
In the 2017–18 seasons, Lappi drove Toyota until he jumped to Citroen for 2019. However, the French brand withdrew from the World Series, and in the 2020 season burdened by the corona pandemic, Lapland had an M-Sport Ford rally car. The completed season rolled around at the wheel of Toyota’s Rally1 hybrid car.
Does getting used to a new car come naturally, Esapekka Lappi?
– It’s probably never easy, but nowadays you know what you want from a car and what features you would like to bring. I also understand better what those things consist of on average. I can demand things because I understand where you can get improvements to the car, Lappi sums up to Iltalehte.
Esapekka Lappi is changing teams. PDO
– Of course, over the years, learning about a new car has become easier in the sense that experience and understanding have increased. It’s still never very easy, because hard work still has to be done.
In 2019, Citroen’s WRC car was notoriously difficult to drive. At least the first contact with Hyundai’s fleet has been positive.
– If for some reason the car is not immediately what you want, then of course you have to try to improve it. And it doesn’t just happen in one day. Making parts and other things can take a while. So far, we are on a good path, says Lappi.
Major data leak
Hyundai benefits from the information of Finnish drivers. PDO
At the beginning of the 2022 season, Hyundai was fast behind Toyota. At the end of the year, however, the Korean manufacturer got its Rally1 hybrid car into much better flight.
For next year, Hyundai will receive important information about Toyota’s equipment from Lapland and about M-Sport Ford’s car From Craig Breen, who, like Lapland, changes teams. The information leak towards Hyundai is significant.
– There are certainly some areas where I can bring benefits to the team. I won’t say where, but I claim that I can bring something (from Toyota) even this quickly, Lappi commented.
– Surely they are also very important things. As the season progresses, I can bring something more, but that remains to be seen.