Tom Fowler at Safari: “The time for specific cars is over”

How was your preparation for Kenya organized? Did you do a session mainly dedicated to this trip?

We made one. It took place between Portugal and Sardinia. It wasn't completely for Kenya. We changed route style during the week. In Europe, it is not easy to reproduce exactly what we are going to face here, but we were still able to learn a lot of interesting things.

How do you work in this type of session? Do you ask pilots to push the hardware beyond its limits to see what will fail first?

These are different sessions from what we are used to doing and on these days we often have discussions regarding the pace they should approach. We certainly try to do everything to eliminate the problems, but it would be very annoying and completely counterproductive if they broke the car in the first few kilometers. The right solution is to go from strength to strength, learn the car, see its reactions and then abuse it. Like the crews, we are always interested to observe how it will negotiate a very damaged section launched at high speed.

Were you satisfied with what you achieved?

These were our first tests with this new Rally1 in rough conditions. This allowed us to pinpoint a few problems. Our goal was to find a compromise between reliability and performance. We have defined specific settings for this event. This is a set up that we have already used previously in Sardinia, particularly in the Power Stage.

Do you have any concerns about the operation of the hybrid unit on Kenyan tracks?

In any case, we encountered no problems in this area during our tests.

How is the Safari terrain different from another round on dirt?

When you do reconnaissance during rallies on this surface, the stages always appear beautiful. You can travel them with a normal car without much risk of breaking down. It is then difficult to assess how the roads will evolve and to predict to what extent it will deteriorate, particularly for the 2^e round. Here, the roads are immediately brittle. Last year, it turned out to be less damaged than we feared, except in very specific areas where we had to slow down. According to what our crews told me at the end of their reconnaissance, it is much more destroyed this year. This is going to be an interesting meeting.

Is there a big difference between the car seen in Sardinia and the one here?

The time for specific cars is over. The Yaris Hybrid has been approved with certain parts and we must use it in this configuration. It is not possible to have elements that we only use in this area. There are things that aren't visible, but the entire underside of the car gets plenty of protection. The variation is therefore more in terms of settings.

In what way?

We use very high ground clearance with specific and fairly flexible shock absorber set-ups. The springs are different as are the anti-roll bars. During most dirt events, our priority is the search for performance by providing a machine that perfectly suits what the rider desires. In Kenya, we are more concerned with car protection and this is the test where the settings do not match exactly what they would like.