According to strong speculation, Hyundai has already made a decision on the matter, but nothing has yet been officially announced.
What is already known is that Hyundai plans to focus more on circuit racing in the future and will compete in the WEC series under its Genesis brand. So it wouldn’t necessarily be a surprise if Hyundai deemed it more reasonable to invest in circuit racing and at the same time withdrew from the top category of the World Rally Championship.
According to Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
“Those rumours aren’t completely unfounded. There is definitely some level of risk involved,” Latvala tells RallyJournal.com directly.
“Right now, we’re all waiting to see what will happen and awaiting Hyundai’s decision. It will have a major impact on the future and the direction we will take,” Latvala continues.
Latvala does not wish to speculate on what decision Hyundai will ultimately make.
“I don’t know the exact situation. They’re heading towards circuit racing now, and I’m sure they’re weighing whether they have the budget to do both,” Latvala suggests.
If Hyundai were indeed to leave, the World Rally Championship would then have only one option – at least in Latvala’s view.
“If Hyundai leaves, then we would have to move to Rally2 cars in the main class of the World Rally Championship. There would be no other alternatives,” Latvala says firmly.
The reason is simple. Currently, the World Rally Championship only has two factory teams and the M-Sport Ford team, which operates with almost no factory support. If Hyundai were to withdraw, only one factory team would remain in the series, which would simply not be enough.
“We can’t rely solely on Toyota and M-Sport anymore. We would then need more private drivers. By switching to Rally2 cars, we would get more manufacturers and private teams involved,” Latvala emphasises.
