World Rally champion Thierry Neuville feels he has been wrongfully handed a penalty for a jump start due to what he believes was a timing glitch at Safari Rally Kenya.
Neuville has already endured an eventful trip to Kenya after only six of the 21 stages comprising the third round of the WRC.
The Belgian suffered an issue with his i20 N that cost him 20 seconds on Thursday's second stage, which led to his Hyundai team changing a driveshaft and gearbox as a precaution during a short 15-minute service on Friday morning. The work carried out resulted in Neuville being six minutes late to stage three, inducing a one-minute penalty.
Neuville managed to recover from 18th to fourth by the time the crews reached stage six, where he was then judged to have jumped the start, incurring a further 10s penalty, before he picked up a puncture.
However, Neuville is hoping the latest penalty can be overturned as he believes a timing system fault prompted his early start to the stage.
“First of all we are very disappointed that we have already been hit by trouble at the start of the rally,” said Neuville.
“The mechanics did what they could to fix the car but 1m20s lost to kick off the rally is a lot. But it is better to afford that here than anywhere else.
“We had two punctures and especially on the last one [stage], which cost us roughly 10 seconds, so it is a bit disappointing but, on the other hand, we are back in P4 so it is not too bad a morning for us.
“We need to analyse because we got a time penalty for leaving too early [in stage six] but actually there was a problem with the timing system so we should get back that 10 seconds.”
When asked if he would appeal the penalty, Neuville added: “Suddenly the time switched and our times were not matching anymore, and at some point we had to go [into the stage] and we didn’t really know when.”
Tanak in command as Safari begins to bite rivals
The sister Hyundai driven by Ott Tanak dominated the morning, winning three of the four stages to extend his overnight advantage from 2.4s to 24.4s.
Tanak’s nearest rival was championship leader Elfyn Evans, while Toyota team-mate and two-time Safari rally winner Kalle Rovanpera moved to third (+47.1s), aided by a fastest time on stage five.
M-Sport’s Josh McErlean survived the brutal conditions to climb to fifth ahead of top WRC2 runner Oliver Solberg and Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta.
Katsuta had started the day in second but slid down the order after knocking a tyre off the rim in stage three, which cost the Japanese 2m34s. Katsuta was forced to drive with caution for the remaining stages of the loop.
Likewise, M-Sport’s Gregoire Munster was forced to surrender third spot when he was slowed by the dust of the recovering Sami Pajari, who was delayed after stopping to change a wheel in stage three.
Munster hit a rock while trying to fight his way through the stage and this contributed to a right-rear suspension failure on his Puma in the following test. Munster managed to nurse his wounded machine back to service after picking up a front-left puncture on stage six.
