“You are trying to recalibrate and do maths while also looking for course marker points. It’s a lot faster, there’s a lot more going on and you have to react much quicker.”
“I call it anxiety rallying,” says Crozier.
“There’s a constant tension in the car, because with the GPS they install, you don’t know when they are checking your accuracy of performance – maybe 22 to 24 times a stage, but you don’t know whether that’s on the entry, middle or exit of a corner. So you have to be bang on the whole time. Craig pointed out I was breathing heavily… And it’s over four long days, more than 1000km, with long road sections. You have to stay on top of yourself and keep hydrated.”
The regularity scoring is so tight, says Parry. “We were less than a second from our set average on our best stage,” he explains. “In the UK that would be top; it means you had absolutely aced it. But on the Monte you were still coming in 36th with scores like that. People are managing to drive these stages with hairpin bends and still be within 0.1 or 0.2sec on every time control, which is an insane level of precision.”
Along with their regularity score, crews are also judged on their economy figures. “At the start of every day your battery level and mileage is checked,” says Parry. “For every stage they check what battery percentage you have got, and there are devices in the car reading that. The people who won the rally somehow managed to be the most economical and best on time, which is insane. Some ignore economy and just try to be best on regularity and be more aggressive.”