Photo: Jaanus Ree / Red Bull Content Pool
Sébastien Ogier sharply criticized Hankook’s studded tires after the second stage of the Monte Carlo WRC. In this stage, starting on the same tires as Oliver Solberg, Ogier lost a minute and nine seconds.
“I have never seen anything like this tire in my life. Unbelievable,” said angrily Sebastien Ogier.
Photo: Jaanus Ree / Red Bull Content Pool
This was not the first time in Ogier’s career that he was extremely unhappy with the tires. This time, Hankook came under fire.
“Honestly, it was hard to hear the nine-time WRC champion say that about your tyres, but we’re in motorsport – everyone drives to the max and puts themselves on the line to do the job as well as possible.” a Hankook representative told DirtFish Steven Cho.
”It is clear that the performance of the tire was not optimal here. In recent years, the Monte Carlo rallies have mostly had mild weather, but this time there was much more snow and slush than we expected. We already knew from last year’s feedback, also directly from Ogier, that there would be problems in conditions of heavy snow and slush. We somehow hoped that the weather would not turn like this.”
Some crews called on the FIA to allow the teams themselves to cut tires to open up the tread pattern and allow snow and slush to disperse better. Cho isn’t sure about that.
Photo: Honza Fronek
“We did some tire modifications,” continues what. ”But in fact we already cooperated with the FIA before. The tread was redesigned, we added more grooves. This was done before the first tests, so all the teams and drivers had enough time to understand what they were driving. It just wasn’t enough because the amount of snow was unprecedented. I think that allowing each team to rotate the tires individually would open a whole Pandora’s box – a path that neither we nor the FIA want to go down. It has its own consequences.”
Cho added that a new generation studded tire is very close to being approved.
”The problem with snow tires, this is going to sound like a typical motorsport excuse… is that the seasonal window is very narrow, so it’s hard to find conditions that really match those [Montekarlo] conditions. But we have a new development that looks very promising. It is almost ready for validation. It’s just that this time we didn’t have enough time to bring it.”
Photo: Sophie Graillon
Elaborating on the successor to the current tire, Cho explained: ”The tread pattern belongs to the same ‘family’, but is much more open. The area of voids is significantly larger and the mixture ‘activates’ much better in cold conditions. We are also working on an improved stud projection configuration. We believe that this will be a very good step forward. P1 teams have already run these tires and the feedback has been positive, so we feel pretty good about the progress. This rally was simply extremely difficult for us, the drivers and everyone involved.”
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