The team principal and the CEO of Hyundai Motorsport, Cyril Abiteboul, says that his team wants to remain at the World Rally Championship and will announced their plans in the very near future as well as the changes that they have made to the i20N ahead of 2025.
A source from Motorsport.com stated earlier this month that Hyundai Motorsport has already developed a prototype LMDh car and are set to join World Endurance Championship and to race at LeMans 24h within three years. In addition to that, Abiteboul had said that Hyundai is set to be a WRC manufacturer until the end of 2026, but their plans from 2027 onwards will depend on if a new car brand will enter the sport since there are only Hyundai, M-Sport Ford and Toyota competing in the championship right now. Moreover, FIA decided to retain the Rally1 regulations until the end of 2026 as the Koreans were not willing to build a new car if the Federation eventually would have decided to introduce some new regulations for 2025. Last but not least, it must be mentioned that M-Sport Ford and Toyota gave the green light to Hyundai to use additional jokers in order to develop further the i20N ahead of the next season with the fear of the last one team could have exited World Rally Championship at the end of 2024.
"We are in rally and we want to make this work, for the rest there is an ongoing process and ongoing investigation", Abiteboul said.
"But first and foremost, I want to secure at least one championship.
"We are here next year and then it's an annual revision of our plans in WRC.
"The first thing was to get stability in terms of regulations and the next thing is to understand the direction that rally is taking as a sport as a property and making sure that there is still a fit between where Hyundai wants to go in terms of marketing and the sport.
"I can tell you that I'm pushing in that direction.
"I'm not letting go.
"I'm not over with rally.
"As far as I am concerned, I'm pushing rally to adopt directions that are sensible for Hyundai.
"I believe that this is our roots in motorsport and cutting your root is something you need to be very sensible about doing it's always a bit dangerous to cut your root.
"You have seen me and other people from the Hyundai group looking into different disciplines, but no decision is made.
"We want to make this work.
"There is no need to make a commitment to 2026 yet, but you can expect some clarification about where we stand in the very near future.
"We are now at a point where we are going to take delivery of some of the components of next year's car, which is a big evolution.
"We are really looking forward to maximising the resources, the focus that we have on that preparation.
"It's coming together.
"We have already received the first parts.
"You will find out soon what we are doing with the homologation dossier.
"There are quite a few changes but it is not the entire programme that we were aiming to do with a new car homologation, it's a subset of it.
"Hats off to the design office, they have not completed it yet, but they have delivered despite all the unknowns and the very late information provided about the technical content of the regulations".
Source: Motorsport.com
Photo Credits: Hyundai
Post a Comment