The team’s previous round in the Canary Islands was a complete disaster. The setup of the team’s Rally1 car was completely off, which meant Thierry Neuville and his teammates had no chance of stopping Toyota, which claimed a 1-2-3-4 finish in the asphalt event.
Neuville described the rally in the Canaries as both challenging and frustrating.
“We were somewhere nowhere – somewhere nowhere in a beautiful country, and it felt like we came here for being more a tourist than a racing driver,” Neuville summed up the trip to the holiday island of Gran Canaria.
It was clear that the Hyundai drivers’ lack of competitiveness stemmed from the car itself. The Hyundai i20 N Rally1 simply didn’t have enough punch to challenge Toyota.
“Something just went wrong. We will put the finger on it and we will also, all together, try to dig even deeper to find what it needs.”
“Is it related to tyre? I don’t think only. But is it a part of it? Probably, yes. And then there’s a lot of other things we’re going to discuss internally and see what we can quickly improve and what takes more time,” Neuville added.
Next week in Portugal, Neuville and his teammates Ott Tänak and Adrien Fourmaux have a chance to strike back. The Hyundai Rally1 car is likely to perform better on gravel with Hankook’s new tyres, so the Hyundai stars can aim for top results.
On Tuesday, Neuville got his first taste of the Portuguese gravel roads as he tested the car and the Hankook tyres during pre-event testing. The atmosphere was already buzzing during preparations, with a large number of rally fans lining the stage.
Watch the video below of Neuville’s test ahead of WRC Rally Portugal!
If the embed doesn’t appear above, you can watch the video through the link!
Rally Portugal takes place from 15–18 May.
