The Seat Cordoba WRC part 4

The Cordoba WRC chassis is reinforced, equipped with a roll cage and prepared for racing by the French specialist Matter. As stated previously the base car was not the best choice Seat could have made to build a WRC car. The story behind the company's choice of the Cordoba body is that of yet another classic FIA failure to apply their own rules. FIA WRC class rules state that a WRC car's base model cannot be shorter than 4000mm. Seat would have liked to build their WRC car around an Ibiza base. That was unfortunately impossible since the Ibiza body would not comply with the FIA rule hence the Cordoba choice. The Cordoba body is too narrow to allow properly fitting all the required parts (i.e. central transmission tunnel, rear transmission, etc.) and its wheelbase is too short compared to its length. These facts render the WRC car less drivable and compliant to driver input especially so in tight corner terrain. But that's the FIA rule so Seat complied with it. Imagine now the company's fury when one and a half years later the same FIA rules were transgressed by Peugeot who homologated the 206 as a WRC car. Note that the base 206 car is only 3835mm long!! and that the base Ibiza is 3855mm long. Of course Peugeot's power is more dominant than that of a company like Seat...well done once again FIA! So Seat ended up with a car that is the longest of all other WRC cars (except the Skoda Octavia) but has the shortest wheelbase of them all, not the ideal architecture to win.

As you may have already guessed the Cordoba WRC E2, although not a bad concept in its whole, has not what it takes to beat more gifted adversaries. It is in this context that Didier Auriol signed his two year contract with Seat knowing well that a lot had to be done to allow the Cordoba to make its way to the top of the WRC hierarchy.

When Didier first tested the car, in late 1999, he immediately realized where the problems were and what the team had to do to fix them, or at least keep them from affecting the car's handling. Didier is well known as one of the best "tuners" in the rallying world today and he surely can guide and motivate the whole team towards reaching their common goal, make a winner out of the current Cordoba while accumulating experience that will might have been used to build Seat's next contender in the WRC the Leon. Among Didier's initial remarks regarding the tarmac version of the car were the following:

Reduce the front track width
Reduce the dumping factor of the dumpers
Use higher diameter, stiffer ant-roll bars to stabilize the car
Gain low end torque
Use different gear ratios
Use a higher ratio rack and pinion and render the steering lighter
Change the suspension angles and geometry

With these changes, for starters, the evolutions and development that will surely follow and Didier Auriol behind its wheel the Cordoba WRC E2 will surely have it chance during the 2000 season, maybe not right from the start, at the terribly difficult Monte Carlo rally, but certainly at some point later in the season.
What will be even more difficult for Didier than straightening out the Cordoba is getting as familiar with the Pirelli tires as he was with the Michelins. Today a lot depends on the driver's ability to choose the best fitted tires per stage. There are so many parameters a driver has to take into account to make his tire choice that the whole operation is promoted to a kind of dark science. It is not rare to see rally drivers (especially Carlos Sainz) wonder through the paddocks and service areas just to see what their competitor's choice is. While Didier is one of the drivers that make the less tire choice mistakes, given his mastering of the Michelin range, Pirelli's range is unknown territory to him. It will certainly take some time and erroneous choices before he's able to choose tires as wisely as he did by the past.

Auriol's teammate, young Toni Gardemeister, has shown unmistakable signs of enormous talent in the recent past. It is rare to see drivers, lacking extensive experience of the WRC, being equally fast on tarmac and gravel. Toni has had remarkable successes on both surfaces and this with the Cordoba WRC, a car which was not as developed as other contenders, when he scored them. A third overall position in the 1999 New Zealand rally and a forth overall in the 2000 Monte Carlo rally are only there to testify of a brilliant career start.
Especially impressive was Toni's performance on special stage 8 of the 2000 Monte Carlo rally. This was the event's longest and most difficult stage with an overall length of more than 48Km. Toni hit a wall after only 3Km into the stage and seriously damaged his rear left suspension. He was able to run the rest of the stage scoring a 3rd overall time!!, only 12 seconds behind Tommi who nuked all other contenders except Carlos on this stage. Toni's rear brakes were not functional and his rear left wheel was wobbling! Note that the wall Toni hit had been previously hit by Didier Auriol, Carlos Sainz and Tommi Mäkinen in earlier editions of the rally. All these drivers were eventually to become World Champions!

During the 2000 WRC season and especially after the 2000 Finnish rally where the first Didier Auriol defined version of the Cordoba, the E3, will appear the SEAT team will have reached the level of evolution and development that other major players have reached for their cars. The team might have had its chance to overall victories and to start building a name for itself in the merciless WRC world hadn't it been forced to retire...