Glynn Hall talks Dakar with Motorsport Media

Hallpeed has undertaken an intense development path for 2017 Dakar. With a new car, fair(er) rules and a formidable driver pairing, Toyota Gazoo Racing is raring to go. Andrew Leopold spoke to Glynn Hall for Motorsport Media

How is Leeroy Poulter doing after his operation?

Glyn Hall: Leeroy is great, he is here today. Doctors gave him the all clear last week with a final scan to see if there were any further issues. It was one hundred percent and he started training but he found straight away that he can’t push in the training because he has had so much cortisone to keep the swelling down. I don’t know why else but he can do 15 kilometres on the bike gently and then that’s that – he’s finished. So the doctor has given him a very precise way to get himself fit again which is just constant improvement in small bursts – but yes it’s all looking very good.



MM: Was that quite a big blow to your Dakar plans?

Glyn: Yes a big blow. You know we have got Giniel de Villiers who is incredibly talented in terms of understanding the Dakar and has helped Leeroy a lot. Giniel is known to be ultra-consistent – he doesn’t want to take too many risks with the team. We’ve got Nasser Al Attiyah now who is just going to go flat out. And Leeroy this year was ready to go flat out – I mean he won every single race this year. He’s just been getting faster and faster. So it was a bit of a blow because the continuity is so important. But maybe Leeroy will be better – he’s obviously had this thing for some time which has been affecting him in other ways. And when they took it out it was pressing on an area that controls a lot of his stomach - for example he got motion sickness which he has never had in his life before. They say that all of this could be related meaning I think we will have a better Leeroy back.



MM: Why did you switch from Hilux to Hilux Evo and back to Hilux?

Glyn: The initial tests on the Toyota Hilux Evo were extremely positive and we started to develop it and we went faster. It’s now as fast as the four-wheel drive car in nearly every aspect but when we finished with everything on the car we were 200 kg overweight and that was the difference between making the decision to use it or not. That coupled with the fact that we had been developing with Nasser in Europe running parts on the car and then in Spain he managed to beat the Peugeot on a gravel road whereas last year we couldn’t. Early stages of Dakar were a surprise to all other competitors.



Remember that the Peugeot now has slightly different rules for 2017 as imposed by the FIA –they have reduced the restrictor size by virtue of rule interpretation so the big debate for us was why risk too much now when we have a good chance to win with the new rules. Eventually it came down to common sense. And then Nasser’s performance in Morocco – it looks like Peugeot have gone down a route where they are actually slower in some places than they were last year. They have changed the car and Nasser’s comments in Morocco were that he caught the Peugeot in the big dunes where the two-wheel drive is supposed to be a lot faster.



MM: So his feedback was quite instrumental in the Hilux decision?

Glyn: Very much so. And his feedback in the beginning when he first drove the Hilux Evo was what convinced us to go down that road. At that time, when we first drove it at the beginning of August we hadn’t released any of the new developments to him for the four-wheel drive car in Europe. We have been working flat out with Leeroy in every SA off-road race all year long and Anthony for that matter, developing other parts and it all became very complicated.



MM: Was it quite a hard decision because you have data saying that the Toyota Hilux Evo is theoretically faster?

Glyn: Yes and especially because of the five days in Bolivia. If we weren’t going to Bolivia we wouldn’t even have considered it because the power to weight ratio in Bolivia with the 36% less power from the engine makes the Evo a “no- brainer” and that is what we based our decision on. Then when we put all these parts on and we’ve seen the Peugeot with the new restrictor is not as fast as it was last year suddenly we had a whole different situation. And a lot of the developments that we have done on the four-wheel drive actually come from Hilux Evo. Even we hadn’t started that program with the intense analysis of the chassis we probably would not have done that to the 4x4. The testing has helped us and it will possibly help us for the future but we will only get onto that next year.



MM: What’s new on the Hilux really – apart from the restrictor size?

Glyn: The new restrictor makes a massive difference. Not only in terms of the amount of air that comes into the engine, but also in how we now map the engine. It has a knock-on effect in terms of fuel consumption, for instance, which in turn influences suspension setup, brakes and so on. But beyond the restrictor, we’ve also unlocked new performance in terms of the suspension setup. Developing a car’s suspension is never-ending, and while you often end up making the smallest adjustments as tiny tweaks, we’ve now managed to make those adjustments - but gain a lot of handling in the process. Other than that, the car is largely the same as before, which also plays into our hands. It is a proven vehicle with an amazing pedigree. All it needed was a little bit more - performance, pace, handling - and now we believe that we might just be there.



MM: What’s the restrictor gone from and to?

Glyn: Thirty seven last year to thirty eight. This is the first year, after five years of me lobbying with the FIA that all the cars are going to be on the same size restrictor. And the annoying thing is that in 2010 when Jean Todt came to power they ruled that all the restrictors would be thirty eight and at the world council it was overturned.



This will be the first year that we actually have the same amount of air going to the engine for all the cars. And it’s to do with the altitude as well.



MM: And Peugeot was running thirty eight last year?

Glyn: No, they were running thirty nine last year, now they have to run thirty eight. They went on an interpretation of the rule, which quite frankly I didn’t agree with and last November I stuck my nose into the FIA’s business by saying that in my opinion it wasn’t the correct interpretation the way that the position of the restrictor for the two turbos – that’s why they had the thirty nine because it says that if you have a single stage turbo you can have thirty nine but if you have a two stage turbo it’s thirty eight. And their interpretation of the way they placed the restrictor and the way they fed the turbos was a single stage and in my opinion it wasn’t. So now, after the analysis of the performance the FIA have changed their opinion by saying that all of those technical layouts of the turbo system has to be presented and the FIA will decide. This is a much better solution all round and in my opinion fairer; you can imagine the difficulty for the FIA with all the teams lobbying for their own benefit.



The idea was that single stage meant single turbo or one on each bank of a V- engine so they have one restrictor each. But the Peugeot had two turbos, one on each side of the V and a single thirty nine feeding both, which in our opinion was completely not allowed. Long story short, sanity has prevailed, common sense has prevailed and at least we are on a better playing field. The boost is still not controlled and I still believe it should be. We are on a little bit of a back foot there but still much better than in the past.



MM What do you believe the Peugeot is running boost- wise?

Glyn: Well, in excess of four bars. We know the Mini runs 4.4 – 4.6 in some places.



MM: Back to our earlier question, what’ new on Hilux?

Glyn: We have the new restrictor, we have a new method of mapping the engine and have been working a lot on this for response. We have a very slightly different exhaust system. We’ve got new front steering geometry which has helped us a lot and that came from Toyota Hilux Evo and that investigation went to the rally car as well. And as you know the rally car was great all year long. And then the damper philosophy we changed completely from last year. We went on a really difficult development path with the dampers and springs. Much more like the rally car than the typical cross country.



MM: Go on…

Glyn: More than I ever thought would be possible. And it took a lot of fine work and a lot of the work that we did on the Evo with the long travel and the soft suspension. Right now, in the last month we have incorporated that.



MM: Like you said, if it wasn’t for Toyota Hilux Evo.

Glyn: We would never have done the dampers we have got now, that I can tell you, that is clear, and you know very often the people, F1 teams, manufacturers, doing new projects, even though they don’t use them they learn other things. Because if you don’t go down those streets you never find out what shops are there. We went into this with very open eyes and we did a lot of very different things and it paid off. We learnt a lot, which also goes in line with Toyota philosophy.



MM: With Nasser and your formidable team do you guys really have the ammo to take on the Peugeots?

Glyn: Well I generally am quite a conservative guy and I would rather under-promise and over-deliver but Nasser is convinced that he can win. He just doesn’t know how fast he must go in the beginning as to how much we are going to lose in Bolivia because we will lose something in Bolivia.



MM: But with the restrictor size is that just because it’s not turbocharged?

Glyn: It helps. According to the FIA we should have a distinct advantage up to two thousand meters and over two thousand meters the turbo will have an advantage. All of the early stages we have to make hay and all the late stages we have to make hay and we will see. If there are not too many turns at high altitude, in other words second or third gear corners then the difference is less because the energy you need is in acceleration not maintaining momentum. The character of the stage very much determines how we are going to do.



MM: How would you say Giniel and Nasser are going to operate in a team? How are they going to complement each other, what’s their strategy because they have pretty different approaches?

Glyn: Yes they have and we will leave each driver to do his own thing – to drive on his comfortable limit in the beginning and they know how to gauge that. We’ll monitor the data in each car and then compare the two guys together. It’s very much what they call “lemon engineering – suck it and see”- because each stage is different, each driver’s character is different.



MM: I would expect Nasser to be really hot out of the blocks

Glyn: Yes but he’s quite a strategist and he knows that when he pushes he takes more risks so it just depends on how many risks you want to take as to how fast you go. And you don’t necessarily want to lead every day. We will be seeing which stages are the best for us to open the next day because there are some stages that are quite easy on tracks but if you have a lot of off road then the last thing you want to do is open the road the next day because immediately you are going to lose three minutes to the guys who are behind you.



MM: But even for Giniel de Villiers it must be quite interesting to jump into an equal car with someone that he has competed with different machinery?

Glyn: Nasser is a tough cookie you know and he’s very determined. He’s very brave and he’s very fit, very focused and the good news for us is that Nasser has chosen all of the same suspension geometry, damper settings, spring settings, limited slip diff that Giniel chose. And we did all of those tests independently so we are convinced we have got quite a good car but it’s encouraging that when we gave them the option he chose what we considered to be the best. It was touch and go for a while because Nasser had tested something in Europe, in Morocco and then when we gave him a new alternative he immediately went for it – but he had to do a proper test.



We had three sets of dampers and springs to test and the crew would come in, park, less than five minute to change to all new dampers and springs and go out again, come in again, four minutes thirty change and he went out and came back in again. On each change we put in fourteen litres of fuel so the weight was precisely correct. We did it as well as we could so we could see the difference. We have a high resolution GPS and with the data logging we can actually see where the different dampers were faster, where he was able to go quicker.



MM: Do you think the race Dakar still favours buggies?

Glyn: This year, with the high altitude you could easily convince yourself yes, because of the power to weight ratio. Two-wheel drive cars are lighter. If we could have got the weight down of the Evo in time and made it strong enough it would have been a much more difficult decision for us.



MM: When are we going to see a race- ready Toyota Hilux Evo?

Glyn: At this stage, I can’t answer that question. However, we’ve learnt so much through the new car, that we’re already seeing the fruit of our labour in the four-wheel-drive. We took it testing last week to Upington and the drivers are so focused on the Dakar preparations - you can’t develop another car. You can only do it beginning and mid-season. At the end when you are preparing for the actual Dakar the drivers are only focused on one thing and that is winning. And we as a team are too, to be quite honest.



MM: You could have quite a difficult decision on your hands this time next year if the Dakar goes really well?

Glyn: Well the difficult decision is made at the beginning of the year not at the end! Where to invest the time and money into developing the car. The Hilux Evo has given us some other opportunities as well with the existing car which we haven’t used yet. We might even come up with another concept...



MM: What other rumblings have you heard about Dakar? You have heard that the Peugeots are not quite as strong in certain stages. Have you heard anything else that you think could play out in 2017?

Glyn: You know, it is such a difficult race. You can listen to the gossip and you can get sucked into it and over the years that we have won races and championships I have been very wary of being sucked into banter or gossip too much. It’s not wrong to listen to it but you have to isolate yourself and do your own story and do your own race and just use this as little bits of information and not the main “hard drive”.



We have got two of the three or five top drivers in the world driving our cars, we’ve won six European races this year, we’ve won every single race in South Africa, and we’ve won races all over Europe.



MM: We’ve spoken quite a lot about Nasser’s input in saying guys lets stick with the Hilux four-wheel drive. What was Giniel’s take on the decision?

Glyn: With Giniel we made the decision only 6 or 8 weeks ago. He kept an open mind while we were doing this intensive testing. We obviously ran the Toyota Hilux Evo at the Sun City 450, and while we concentrated on testing the suspension rather than its outright performance, we felt it should’ve gone a bit quicker. We made some fundamental changes, we went back to Sun City to some of the route and we improved the car dramatically. So we had a 4x4 Hilux with the ‘thirty eight’ restrictor and we did some of the route and obviously Giniel in the ‘thirty eight’ was significantly faster than Anthony was on that piece of the route and we can match the time with the Evo. The difference was that it was more difficult to do that time for him – more of a challenge in the Hilux Evo. And then we came back and we had a look at what we could easily reduce the weight by without taking any risk and we made the decision to stick with the 4x4. Nasser had already made his decision to stay with 4x4 after his Spanish victory over Carlos Sainz in the Peugeot, so it would have been nice in one way to have one of each but the logistics were massive. So Giniel made the decision that he would stay with the 4x4 and take on Nasser in the Dakar itself.



MM: Sounds like the Evo is much quicker over rough terrain? Is that where it excels?

Glyn: Much quicker. You know when it’s off road and there are lots of hidden holes you can be much more brave. When the road is defined, like a rally road it’s a bit more of a handful and in the dune sections where we were testing, they performed the same. So overall, with there being so many rally roads on the Dakar and with the Peugeot with the restrictor down it was in favour of the four-wheel drive Hilux.



MM: What happens now? What are the formal preparations before we actually arrive?

Glyn: Massive checking of the cars. We just fitted the engine before Upington but the whole car is stripped. We take all the wiring out of the back and check it precisely. Nasser’s car that we’re using is a new car that we had already in stock so that’s less of a challenge. They are preparing all the parts so we can change everything regularly.



MM: Did taking Nasser from Mini must have come with some insights?

Glyn: Not really – he just thought our car was better in every respect except the torque of the engine. He never even wanted to change the car to be like the Mini. Nani Roma was much more intense on having some of the things that they used in Mini but Nasser not at all. He drove the car for the first four races identically to how Giniel drove the Hilux in the last Dakar. Not even a click on the damper.



MM: And your take on Mini’s chances this year?

Glyn: They have got a new car with a lower centre of gravity. Brand new cars but to be honest I don’t think they have the drivers to take on Stephane Peterhansel, Giniel, Nasser or Carlos Sainz. We know how difficult it is for a driver to be successful in Dakar, it takes time. Just look at Loeb in the Peugeot last year arguably the best driver the world has ever known with nine WRC titles to his name, and he struggled on the difficult stages. Mikko Hirvonen is fast no question but is also still learning about the Dakar. Yazeed changed from Hilux to Mini for the 2017 FIA championship and so far has not beaten Nasser in a straight fight, Terranova can be fast but so far has not looked like winning a Dakar.





Forza Toyota! Forza Giniel! Forza Nasser!

Imperial Toyota would like to thank Motorsport Media for allowing us to post this interview.