Hyundai to delay 2025 WRC car debut until after Monte Carlo

Hyundai will delay the debut of its upgraded World Rally Championship challenger after electing to run its 2024-specification automobile in subsequent month’s Monte Carlo season opener.

The Korean producer had deliberate to homologate a virtually all-new model of its i20 N Rally1 for subsequent yr earlier than plans had been deserted amid uncertainty over the 2025 laws.

Following the FIA’s U-turn on 2025 technical laws after pushback from the groups, Hyundai has been in a position to salvage a part of its i20 N improvement plans courtesy of an settlement to deliver ahead its 2026 improvement jokers for use for the 2025 marketing campaign.

It means the staff has 4 jokers it has utilised to finish a raft of updates to its automobile which are but to be disclosed.

Whereas Hyundai has ramped up testing and improvement of the evolution of its i20 N in latest months, the staff has determined in opposition to operating the automobile in January’s Monte Carlo curtain raiser for drivers Thierry Neuville, Ott Tanak and new signing Adrien Fourmaux.

Hyundai opened this yr’s marketing campaign with Neuville claiming his second Monte Carlo win.

“There was quite a lot of work stepping into and we nonetheless imagine there’s good potential within the automobile and clearly we’re very restricted when it comes to the mileage that we are able to cowl or that has been coated with the automobile,” Hyundai staff principal Cyril Abiteboul advised Autosport.

“The important thing query goes to be what’s the tipping level for this automobile to change into a extra managed platform than the present automobile? It’s not actually a brand new automobile, it’s what we name the ‘evo’ automobile.

“We’re within the strategy of discovering when the tipping level will happen and from that foundation we are going to decide as to when is the perfect introduction technique for the automobile. It’s not going to be in Monte Carlo. 

“We are going to use the present automobile in Monte Carlo. That occasion is a really particular problem and it isn’t gained on pure outright tempo, so we expect it’s higher to maintain on utilizing the automobile that we perceive and know find out how to arrange and by the way in which it additionally gained the occasion this yr.”