Last season, Hyundai was overwhelmed by Toyota in the manufacturers’ title fight. Toyota celebrated no fewer than 12 rally wins during the year, while Hyundai drivers managed just two victories.
Hyundai invested heavily in the development of its i20 N Rally1 car ahead of the 2026 season. However, at the opening round in Monte Carlo, Hyundai’s drivers were unable to match the leading pace.
Toyota secured a one-two-three at the season opener, led by Oliver Solberg ahead of Elfyn Evans and Sébastien Ogier. Among the Hyundai drivers, Adrien Fourmaux finished fourth, with Thierry Neuville in fifth.
The rally was run in demanding winter conditions, which led to large time gaps on icy asphalt roads. Fourmaux finished six minutes behind the winner, while Neuville was more than ten minutes adrift.
“There were some highs and lows, I would say. We were competitive on Sunday, so I’m quite pleased with that,” said Fourmaux, who finished third at Rally Monte Carlo last year.
Towards the end of the rally, Fourmaux found better pace and set two fastest stage times. The downside, however, was that these were Hyundai’s only stage wins of the entire weekend. Toyota drivers recorded 13 fastest times in the rally.
“For the rally itself, we’ve been focused on developing the car on tarmac, so we spent quite a lot of days testing. I think we just haven’t optimised our chances for these conditions because we had so many things to sort out before we could really push in the tricky conditions,” Fourmaux explained.
“I think we missed this work a little bit, and to be fair we didn’t expect these conditions. So we were not very well prepared for them. I’m quite frustrated about that,” he admitted.
In terms of points, the weekend was not a disaster for Fourmaux. The Frenchman scored a total of 17 World Championship points – just one fewer than third-placed Ogier collected in Monte Carlo.
However, the rally showed that Hyundai still has plenty of work to do if it wants to seriously challenge Toyota this season. The team continues to face the same issues as last year.
“The championship is long, and we knew that tarmac has been our Achilles’ heel,” Fourmaux said bluntly.
“It’s only one event and we’re still searching. So that’s okay,” he added.
