The Rally Sweden winner was compelled to give up second place when his i20 N floor to a halt in stage 5 with a transmission situation.
The Finn minimize a annoyed determine, admitting there was no warning of the approaching failure. His exit comes after struggling 4 propshaft failures throughout final yr’s go to to Kenya which triggered the workforce to suit a stronger model of the part forward of the 2024 version.
“The gearbox exploded,” mentioned Lappi. “At first it began to go to entrance wheel drive and after one acceleration there was no impression or a extremely massive noise coming from it, it simply went to entrance wheel drive. A few hundred metres later there was no pull from the automotive in any respect it did not matter if I used to be in first or fifth gear.
“At that second there wasn’t any impression however for positive in the course of the phases there was impacts. Everybody has had the identical situations so there may be nothing that ought to trigger this downside. It’s actually irritating.
“We are able to change the gearbox and go [again] however I do not know what the purpose is to attempt tomorrow.
“I’ve some thought of what I want to do [tomorrow] and I’ve already offered these to the workforce and let’s have a look at in the event that they agree or not. I want to do solely the morning.”
Hyundai technical director Francois-Xavier Demaison says the gearbox is among the i20 N’s recognized weaknesses and is tough to discover a long-term repair.
“The gearbox is damaged and we all know that it’s a weak level of the automotive however we now have to dwell with this,” mentioned Demaison.
“We had an enormous hope we might remedy this, but it surely appears to be sophisticated for the longer term. Esapekka’s retirement is a reliability situation and we’re not proud of that however we won’t do a lot about that throughout the present [homologation joker] guidelines, it’s tough to repair it. We are going to do what we will.”
Esapekka Lappi, Janne Ferm, Hyundai World Rally Staff Hyundai i20 N Rally1
Photograph by: Austral / Hyundai Motorsport
Lappi’s exit did hand team-mate Ott Tanak second place however this was short-lived because the Estonian crashed out on stage six. The 2019 world champion struck a rock in the course of the street which despatched the automotive right into a financial institution inflicting terminal harm to the i20 N’s steering.
“It’s one thing that occurs very often on the Safari Rally. It [the rock] was in a spot the place it was fairly hidden and I could not actually react to something and the street was slim with the banks on the facet,” mentioned Tanak.
“I had nowhere to go actually so I needed to take the rock and it was far too massive and it put us off the street. I do not suppose the rock did an excessive amount of harm, however I hit the financial institution so arduous and we acquired all of the harm from there.”
Tanak’s exit left Thierry Neuville as the only real remaining Hyundai, the Belgian managed to outlive a puncture to finish Friday in fourth 1m07.3s behind rally chief Toyota’s Kalle Rovanpera.
After listening to about Lappi’s gearbox failure Neuville admitted he was involved by the character of the Finn’s transmission situation.
“We’re going to maintain preventing. Clearly, it’s not good to see two of my team-mates retire and it’s one other unhealthy day right here in Kenya for Hyundai,” mentioned Neuville.
“It’s tough for me once I hear about Lappi’s issues, to be 100% assured to assault 100% in locations the place it’s actually tough. I do not wish to face the identical points.”