The team principal of Hyundai Motorsport, Cyril Abiteboul, praises the efforts of the machanics back to the factory, but meanwhile being aware that the team must do more steps to become a constant contender against Toyota.
Hyundai i20N's improvement is very obvious as Thierry Neuville and Esapekka Lappi managed to do the 2-3 for their team at Rally Estonia despite the fact that no one of them was able to take a stage win there. At Rally Finland, Neuville was fighting with Elfyn Evans for the lead after Kalle Rovanpera's retirement, but the Welshman increased his gap after setting continuously fastest times on Saturday stages. However, the positive thing for TN is that he claimed three stage wins there and returned back to the second place of the podium after ten years. Last but not least, Teemu Suninen gave a hard battle with Takamoto Katsuta for the third place of Rally Finland, but eventually the last one's experience with the Rally1 cars won.
"While today’s result is a strong one and positive for the championship, we can see we are still missing out and we need to make more steps like we have done recently if we want to become a constant contender against Toyota", Abiteboul said at the end of Rally Finland.
"We know these fast rallies don’t necessarily show our car at its best, but it is the work going on behind the scenes in the factory that has helped us to improve the car, show consistency and reliability, so I’d like to say a huge thanks to everyone".
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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