Hyundai Motorsport is focused on fighting with Toyota Gazoo Racing to win the third constructors’ world championship in its history in the WRC and what would be the first among the drivers, but, under the surface, something is moving and these are important projects. Projects for the future of the racing department in Alzenau which, however, will go hand in hand with those dictated by Korea, with the strategy and the models that will be launched in the next few years as well as the type of engines chosen.
Over the last few days, Motorsport.com has been able to reveal how Hyundai Motorsport is working concretely to enter the World Endurance Championship by creating a prototype. To be precise, an LMDh, a platform already chosen by Lamborghini, Porsche, BMW, Cadillac and Alpine, which leads to choosing one of the 4 existing chassis and creating the engine part.
This project will require huge investments from an economic point of view, but also from a personnel one. This is why doubts have arisen about the future of Hyundai Motorsport in the World Rally Championship, the WRC.
With Hyundai busy in the WRC, but also defining plans for the future, we asked Cyril Abiteboul, team principal and president of Hyundai Motorsport, about the future of the Korean company’s racing department. The former Renault and Caterham manager certainly did not dispel doubts about Hyundai’s future in the WRC, stating that in the coming months the company will communicate its intentions in the world of motorsport but also that the i20 N Rally1 will race until the end of the current regulation, that is, until the end of 2026.
“There will be an announcement about our plans for the future and I am not able to do that at the moment because it revolves around several people, but at the base and at the headquarters, and we will do that in due course,” revealed the Paris-born team principal.
“Of course, I do not deny that, having pushed the sport in this direction, it would be strange if we did not maintain our commitment to the sport. There will be time for everything, but we are not able to fully implement our plan.”
![Cyril Abiteboul, Team Principal of the Hyundai World Rally Team](https://cdn.motorsport.com/images/mgl/6zQKAPkY/s1000/cyril-abiteboul-team-principal.jpg)
Cyril Abiteboul, Team Principal of Hyundai World Rally Team
Photo by: Austral / Hyundai Motorsport
We talked about an Abiteboul who was unclear about the future. In fact, the president of Hyundai Motorsport said that from 2027 onwards the WRC projects on a technical level are not – to date – so clear. Just as those of Hyundai are unclear, as they are preparing to end production of the current i20 without giving it a real replacement in the same segment. The N version – the one on which the current Rally1 is based – has already gone out of production, while the basic one will end its life in 2025.
“2027 is definitely a different world. We need to understand where the sport is going from a technological point of view, we need to understand where it is going from a promotional point of view, because yes, there have been a couple of announcements and I’m not saying it’s not going in the right direction, but it needs a bigger step from a promotional point of view. We also need to understand where our internal world is going.”
“The car we are using, the i20, will be completely stopped [produzione di auto stradali] by then and in its high-performance N is already stopped. Next year it will stop being produced in its normal form, so we need to figure out what the successor to the i20 is and how compatible that successor is with the direction the sport is going to take. It’s a lot of new worlds to align to see if there’s a business case that can make sense for everyone.”
In short, a Hyundai that will try to exploit the current regulation until the end to achieve its goals, but even the president himself admitted that beyond the Pillars of Hercules of 2026 the presence of the Korean company is far from a given.
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