The compact format of this year’s Rally Mexico featured 22 stages totalling 344.49km and a total distance of 1,055.88km from the start in the UNESCO-listed town of Guanjuato to the finish in Léon, 400km northwest of Mexico City. Competitive action in the region’s high sierra peaked at an altitude of more than 2,700 metres and the rarefied air starved the WRC cars’ engines of some 20 percent of their usual power.
Michelin’s partners were able to choose between the hard-compound ‘H4’ and soft-compound ‘S5’ versions of its LTX Force gravel tyres. Following the performance of the soft option on its debut outing on this same event in 2017, the latter was nominated as the chief choice for Round 3 of the 2018 FIA World Rally Championship due to its exceptional versatility.
This decision was greeted by the drivers, but some crews finally chose to fit the harder MICHELIN LTX Force H4 for the afternoon’s tests which tended to be cleaner than they had been first time through, while the weather was much hotter, too, with temperatures at times in excess of 30°C.
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