Elfyn Evans wins Rally Finland as FIA, Pirelli devise plan for more challenging tyre management

Elfyn Evans won Rally Finland in his Toyota (Photo: Pirelli)

The FIA, World Rally Championship promoter and Pirelli are discussing the opportunity to make more diverse and challenging race strategies by enforcing the use of option tyres in future rallies. The tyre supplier revealed the plan following a Rally Finland won by British driver Elfyn Evans after a dramatic Friday in which many pre-rally favourites were eliminated. Pirelli said its Scorpion soft tyres performed reliably well, with all drivers (except Teemu Suninen on Sunday morning) using identical strategies to capitalise on its strength versus the option tyre.

A succession of accidents and unforeseen incidents halved the group of Rally1 drivers, eliminating contenders Ott Tanak, Esapekka Lappi and Kalle Rovanpera, as well as Pierre-Louis Loubet, who later returned to the race. Evans’ Toyota won seven victories out of eight special stages, chased by Thierry Neuville’s Hyundai with the others far behind fighting for third place.

Rally Finland was even more challenging than usual due to intermittent but intense rain. The rainfall often created puddles and ruts on numerous passages, making the fast roads around Jyvaskyla more unpredictable. The only tyres used were the soft ones, which even in the most difficult sections and in the pouring rain ensured grip on the often less compact and dirtier than usual surfaces, resisting the blows of the long and frequent jumps. The average and top speeds were high: Rovanpera winning the fastest stage of the race (SS3 Lankamaa 1) at an average speed of 143km/h.

Terenzio Testoni, Pirelli rally activity manager, said: “The Scorpion soft tyres once again guaranteed not only grip and performance, but also great durability, cancelling out any possibility of strategies and diversification of choices by the teams. This is why we are working with the FIA and WRC Promoter to make the use of a set of option tyres, hard or soft, mandatory for every rally.  We think that in this way the races can become livelier and more interesting, raising the level of challenge for drivers and teams. In Greece the hard gravel tyres will return, also generally the only tyres used when they are first, to face totally different difficulties from those we have seen in the last three races of the championship.”

In the battle for victory of Rally2 cars, Oliver Solberg came out on top in an intense duel with Sam Pajari. Once again, the Scorpions in the version developed for Rally2 cars (the K6B) left the drivers to concentrate solely on driving, with tyre strategies in line with those adopted by the teams for Rally 1.