Tom Howard, Rover Perry, Yara Matty discussed on The Autosport Podcast
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
Rally is our man Tom Howard. Wow, that was once again a weekend that absolutely delivered for some amazing racing. Yeah, an incredible rally. Again, it's just fun in the words to describe calorie rover Perry is now actually hard. I'm running out of adjectives. I'm running out of superlatives. It's just, it's just unbelievable. Like people are just genuinely stunned at what he's able to do and it's the key to this is the wet weather. This is where he's making the most impact. When it gets difficult and extreme, he's on a different or as Yara Matty Latvia the toe to boss said he's on another planet and he's absolutely correct because there is no one could touch him. Nobody can absolutely touch it. If you need anything to sort of justify or the skill that calorie romper is I would produce. Just go and watch the highlights from the power stage because that for me is probably that will be one of the drives of the season because I didn't need to push. Had a massive lead already, but there's 5 bonus points up for grabs. It was absolutely ridiculously wet to the point where SFI galapa actually described it as the craziest stage he's ever driven. That's how bad the conditions were. And he had the very similar conditions thereof in evidence and say, oh, you know, they were together in the road order. So elfin went slightly before him. So they started conditions weren't that different. But Kelly won the stage by 22.5 seconds over Evans, which is just unheard of. And it's just, I just don't know what to say anymore. He's just defying belief of what he's able to do in that car at the minute. And so that the car is reliable, but so, as the consistency of the driver as well, nothing seems. And he has had big offs. And coming through the series as well in WRC two, he had a big offer a few years ago where he landed on top of a spectator's car. And so it's not like he is impervious to making him mistake. But this season, his consistency just seems to keep delivering and delivering. Yeah, he's just, I think we spoke about it before. I think this was maybe Portugal where we just said he's just in this sort of flow zone where everything he is doing is just coming up gold. You know, it's just I think the best things to look at and you have to remember that each driver is a different driving styles, but if you compare the onboards of him with elfin Evans, it looks like Kelly's on a Sunday drive, like he's just so calm, so collected and yet performing miracles and doing things that you just can't believe he's doing, whereas elfin is just on the ragged edge, trying to get as much out of this car to try and keep up with Cali. Yeah, as I said, no one really can explain it. He's just he's on a different level. He's just at this point where he's so confident in the car. He's able to push where people just simply can't. And people can't say, well, it's just the machinery is better because he's beating his teammate because it was a one two photo again this weekend and with elf and Evans coming home in second tanak home hero tanak in the first of the Hyundai's in third, followed home by the closest championship rival, what does he know? I made a note of it over the weekend, 80 odd points, 83 points. Three points. Neuville is 83 points behind rather than in the fight for the championship. But like four minutes back in the second Hyundai. So it's not as if you can say, well, he's in superior machinery. And the Toyota is superior machinery in many conditions. He's just so good. And you know, it seems like now let's flip things around a little bit because on the last podcast, the second half we heard from the drivers and team managers, let's flip it round and hear from him right now because he's got that, if I can sort of use a bit of a cultural stereotype, that finish that finish thing going on, where he is brutally fast on the road. And yet when the Finns talk about their racing afterwards, it just sounds like they're so like they reclined, they're laid back. And he is so laid back when you hear him talk. Let's have a little listen here to Callie Robin pere talking after another win. Big 5 from the beginning with the guys opening the road and he had an elephant was all the time they are giving pressure also. So it was a nice vegan. Brokerage driving and United States is yeah, I think I haven't seen rains like this anywhere else before. It seemed that every time we had a break or road checks and there was some sunshine and stuff and then when we were on the start line it's always raining or something and yeah, quite extreme conditions a few times. An impressive final stage from you today. I saw that there was some rain before heavy rain for the guys then a bit less and less all the time for the last cars to come through. So yeah, I knew that there might be a chance for us to have a good position to start at the stage and India then I just push for it and the time was good. Okay, that's some of the press conference audio that they very kindly supplied to the auto sport podcast for us to use on the podcast today some Tom. So what do you make of some of the things that he talked about there after his win? You're right, he's typically understated. He must realize that what he's doing is phenomenal, but he's just so calm with it all. It's interesting in a way. It's kind of from a journal perspective. It's kind of, I suppose, a little bit annoying that he doesn't get more excited about what he's doing. But you have to buy it. You have to buy the fact that he's just so cool, calm collected. But I guess the point we need to make here is that the area where he is having a vantage is in these wet and slippery conditions. So three times elfin and Cali have gone up against each other for a rally win and the three times The Rain has come down in Portugal, Kenya, and now here he's just had something else that he can offer an elfin has no answer in reply. But he don't. But Evan started the weekend really well. He dominated early part of Friday. They absolutely. So just to recap that obviously elfin started Friday, he won 5 stages on the bounce and a lead of 19.9 seconds over Cali. Now, some of that was down to that was dry to begin with that the rally. So there was a bit of cleaning for Cali to do being first on the road, and you have to remember elfin was, I believe, 6th on the road. So he had a much better conditions. But yes, you're right. I often was in the zone and was looking very much like the elf and that we saw in Finland last year when he absolutely monster that event and won it. So there was genuine hope here that elf is elephant is going to do this. There's a very strong chance, but again, The Rain came down on that last stage on Friday and this is where Callie is so ruthless and clever is that he was because he was first on the road. It just worked slightly better in his favor in terms of the conditions were bad, but they got worse for the rest of the field. And he knew that and he could have just backed off because it was pretty slippery, but because he knew he was going to get worse. He decided to push. And that is where he got the 22.6