Estonia notebook: Jumps and moguls

One of the major characteristics of Estonia is that it offers many bumps. When the event was chosen to serve as a promotion to the WRC, the organizers rushed to create a course that could be used as a training base for the rally from Finland.

From 2018, Toyota, Hyundai and Citroën had sent crews to work on the settings. At the same time, the Estonians did not hesitate to fabricate bumps of different sizes from scratch, with a great preference for tall, spectacular and completely unnatural buildings.

It had become even more extreme than in Finland! Integrated into the world championship calendar since last year, Estonia sought to reduce its top speeds, but the bumps remained. The competition being very close, it is impossible for drivers aiming for the podium to brake their cars just before taking off on each of these jumps.

This would cause them to lose 2 to 3 seconds... per jump, which would result in huge gaps at the finish. Having no choice, they swallow these mounds at full speed and landings can be painful.

Because of their artificial appearance, the slope on which the cars fall is often very steep. Oliver Solberg realized this when he crushed the nose of his i20. Sometimes, it is the crew and more particularly the navigator who bears the violence of the impact, especially if the car does not touch the ground flat, but in an acrobatic position.

Unlike the driver who sees the impact coming and can hold on to the steering wheel, the "sandbag" only has his meager notebook to hold on to... This particularly affected Daniel Barritt, Takamoto Katsuta's co-driver. The Englishman had to be taken to hospital for an examination and it was decided to leave him to rest.

Sébastien Ogier admitted that he had finished the first loop with back pain and Florian Haut-Labourdette was also badly shaken in the right seat of Pierre-Louis Loubet's Hyundai. Announced to be slower, the 2nd stage of this 7th round will perhaps offer fewer bumps to negotiate at very high speed.