Both Ford drivers, Ott Tänak and Pierre-Louis Loubet, have suffered from the power steering problems that have plagued M-Sport for a long time at the World Cup opening.
19:06•Updated 19:11
Urheilu follows the Monte Carlo World Rally here moment by moment.
Estonian who moved to M-Sport Ford Ott Tänak too was predicted to belong to Toyota Kalle Rovanperän to the toughest opponents in this year’s World Rally Championship.
Tänak and his French teammate Pierre-Louis Loubet have had a hard time at the season opener in Monte Carlo. Tänak and Loubet have both suffered from the power steering problems that have plagued M-Sport for a long time.
Loubet’s power steering already broke on Friday, on Saturday the same fault also surprised Tänak.
– It feels really special if a problem has been thought about and can’t be fixed when we’re talking about cars of this level. I don’t understand what could be wrong with it, Urheilu’s expert Henri Haapamäki amazes.
Haapamäki reminds us that the same Ford power steering problems were already talked about last summer at the Jyväskylä World Rally Championship.
– Jari Huttusella there was this same booster problem in Jyväskylä. At least what I saw last year in Jyväskylä, it was a normal hydraulic booster, Haapamäki remembers.
“Sometimes the booster works, sometimes it doesn’t”
Haapamäki suspects that there must be a structural or design error in the background.
– I would personally guess that the problem is probably related to the heating and boiling of the oil. The hydraulic pump starts cavitating. Everything points to a kind of stalling disorder, when sometimes the booster works and sometimes it doesn’t, Haapamäki thinks.
Haapamäki does not understand how the problems have not been solved.
– I really wonder what could be wrong with it, when the hydraulic power steering is after all an invention that is decades old. I don’t understand what’s wrong with that, Haapamäki thought.
Even today’s World Cup opening has left much to be desired. He drove in the rally on Saturday evening in fifth place.
The Estonian just crashed out violently in Monte two years ago. When the car veered off the road, the speed was no less than 180 kilometers per hour. A disastrous run-out can still have an effect.
– Monte Carlo is such a rally that you have to have full confidence in the car to be able to drive at the limit. If power steering or some other things are running through your mind, the effects are immediately visible on the watch, says Haapamäki.