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Hyundai to launch WRC fightback with updated car in Sweden
The World Rally Championship heads to the famous snow stages of Rally Sweden this week and all eyes will be on Hyundai as it launches its revised 2025 car.
The 2019-2020 WRC manufacturers’ champions are aiming to end rival Toyota’s four-year grip on the title this year, and plan to do so with a significantly updated i20 N Rally1 car.
Last month Hyundai kicked off its 2025 WRC campaign in Monte Carlo with new signing Adrien Fourmaux leading the Korean marque’s charge, finishing an impressive third behind the Toyota duo of eight-time world champion Sebastien Ogier and Wales’ Elfyn Evans.
Hyundai’s reigning drivers’ world champion Thierry Neuville finished a distant sixth, following a mistake and a puncture, while team-mate Ott Tanak claimed fifth.
But in Sweden the covers come off Hyundai’s much anticipated evolution of its i20 N Rally1 WRC car - a project the team has been working on since the start of last season.
The team and drivers have remained tight-lipped regarding the extent of the upgrades, but it is understood the improvements are focussed on weight reduction and suspension.
“It is [an exciting moment for team] and in particular when we see with last year’s car legalised to this year’s homologation we are still generally competitive, so with the evolution that we are bringing it should be positive,” Hyundai team principal Cyril Abiteboul told DAZN News.
“I don’t want to create over expectation about the evolution but it is clearly the biggest evolution since the introduction of this generation of car, and we all look forward to seeing that in action.
“We had a bit of weakness on both reliability and performance and on the reliability side we hope that some of the well documented issues we had on the transmission, will be not fully sorted but will be better.
“On the performance side, we knew our car was weak on smooth, fast gravel, low grip conditions, we hope the changes will help in that respect. The car was good in rough gravel conditions and we think that feature will still be there, but we hope we have worked on the rest. It may be that we have made a strong car even stronger, we don’t know. Our drivers are smiling but let’s see, the smile on the Toyota drivers faces may be even bigger.”
World champion Neuville offered a wry smile when asked about the upgrades in Monte Carlo, adding: “It [the car] will be a bit upgraded maybe hopefully. I have had a good feeling so far with the few improvements we have tested and hopefully we can confirm that in the race.”
Hyundai were victors when the WRC visited Sweden last year and will head into round two sitting 24 points behind Toyota in the manufacturers’ standings.
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