Toyota claimed a total of 12 rounds, while Hyundai drivers were credited with only two victories. Ott Tänak celebrated a win in Greece in June, and in the season-ending rally in Saudi Arabia Thierry Neuville took his only victory of the year.
Hyundai strengthened its engineering expertise in the autumn by recruiting top talent, and additional know-how was also brought into the leadership when Andrew Wheatley was appointed the team’s sporting director. Wheatley was involved in the final three World Rally Championship events and assumed the nominal role of team principal.
Cyril Abiteboul still remains at the helm of Hyundai Motorsport. The Frenchman is officially also the team principal of the WRC outfit, but next year the role is likely to rest even more firmly on Wheatley’s shoulders, with Abiteboul focusing more intensively on circuit-racing projects.
Although Abiteboul has been seen increasingly rarely in the WRC service park, he has a clear view of what went wrong this year.
“We know that Toyota redesigned the gearbox ratios. Because of the hybrid system, it’s something we couldn’t have done since all our spare parts had already been used elsewhere. There were also internal mistakes, design flaws in the car,” Abiteboul sums up to Belgian channel RTBF.
“But ultimately, it’s primarily a lesson in risk analysis and what we really need to do. And I think we all need to draw some conclusions from this.”
The winter break in the World Rally Championship is famously short. The new season will get under way already next month with the legendary Rally Monte Carlo. In just over a month, Hyundai should get all the pieces to fall into place, while next year’s test work is already beginning.
“Next year, the challenge is to stay focused. We’re not that far off, we’ve seen it several times, we could have won. Above all, we need to solidify our reliability. Often, we had the pace, but not the reliability,” Abiteboul says.
“We need to solidify our understanding of the Hankook tires. And then, we have a few technical issues we absolutely must concentrate on without getting sidetracked.”
Hyundai’s WEC project has also drawn focus away from the WRC team, as part of the staff have been working across both championships.
“We’ve diversified our activities, and that’s had an impact. Now, we need people who are absolutely focused on the few changes that need to be made.”
