Hyundai Motorsport director Andrea Adamo is happy to talk to Sebastien Ogier about the Frenchman’s allegations of ‘mean tactics’ at the last World Rally Championship round in Portugal.
Ogier accused Adamo of instigating tactics which would impact on another competitor – with potential safety implications – on the stages of Rally Portugal.
Ogier has no desire to speak further about the issue, but stands by his comments in Portugal.
Asked by Autosport ahead of this weekend’s Rally Italy Sardinia if he was prepared to talk to the six-time world champion about his comments, Adamo said: “I’m here, a nice kind of Italian man.
“I will be very happy to clarify the things with Sebastien if he needs, it’s no problem at all.
“But I will say this also, sometimes these people are under so much pressure – the adrenalin to drive these cars is so much.
“I don’t comment on that, but I totally understand him somehow.
“He found himself in a difficult situation, he discovered that [Ott] Tanak stopped in the stage and let him [Ogier] lead the championship – so for sure he was a bit nervous about this, he knew he would be opening the road here [in Sardinia].
“For sure, he has seen something, let me use the word ‘aggressive’, in terms of approach from Hyundai.
“We did it twice and this would make him nervous.
“We did not do this to make him nervous, we did this to help Thierry against the other.”
The divisive WRC newcomer stoking a tactics storm
Adamo dismissed speculation of an atmosphere between the Hyundai and Citroen teams, adding: “I don’t think there is an atmosphere that is bad, I think it’s a normal thing of motorsport.
“If you see what is happening in F1 with five seconds between [Lewis] Hamilton and [Sebastian] Vettel; if we have to be scared of motorsport, we have to do another job.”
Adamo also told Autosport he is confident his team has fixed the fuel-related issues suffered in the heat of Rally of Portugal by Sebastien Loeb and Dani Sordo a fortnight ago.
With temperatures moving towards 40 degrees tomorrow, the trio of i20 Coupe WRCs will return to the Rally Mexico specification fuel tank which has a different internal layout less susceptible to the heat.
Ogier crashes, then sets fastest time in Sardinia shakedown
Sebastien Ogier recovered from a Rally Italy shakedown mistake to post fastest time at Thursday’s final pre-event test stage.
Ogier was one of several drivers to hit a gate in the 2.43-mile Olmedo stage. The Frenchman damaged the left-rear of his Citroen C3 WRC, but recovered with fastest time on his next run at the test.
Ogier said: “At least I’m glad it happened today! It was nothing at shakedown, but it would have been a different story tomorrow morning!
“This gate was very tricky, super-narrow and a difficult place to rotate the car through this gate.
“I damaged a steering link for the rear-left wheel and I had to stop. Luckily the team came and fixed the car and I could carry on and make the best time on the next pass of the stage.”
Ogier’s nearest rival in the championship, Toyota man Ott Tanak was second quickest at shakedown – 0.9s slower than his former team-mate who runs first on the road this weekend.
Last year’s Sardinian winner Thierry Neuville was third 1.7s down.