The history of the Hyundai World Rally Team

First steps

All began in the 90s, like most great things did. Back then the team was simply called Hyundai Motorsport and competed in the F2 class of the WRC for two years. Their car was the Hyundai Coupe RD Evo 2, which had a 2.0 L inline-4 n/a engine and a power output of 260 bhp. It also had a 6-speed sequential transmission and front-wheel drive. Run by the British company Motor Sports Development (MSD), David Whitehead as the team principal and Alister McRae, Colin McRae’s younger brother, as the lead driver, they didn’t really make a lot of points over both seasons. Nevertheless, they hadn’t given up.

A new car, a new chance

In September 1999, the Hyundai Accent WRC was unveiled. The car just shared a few basic parts with the road going model, like most rally cars do. With a turbocharged, 300 bhp 2.0 L inline-4 engine and four-wheel drive, the expectations were high. The Hyundai World Rally Team celebrated their debut at the 2000 Swedish Rally and achieved their first top-ten result at the same year’s Rally Argentina. Alister McRae and Kenneth Eriksson finished seventh and eighth. In New Zealand Eriksson finished fifth and in Australia fourth.
In 2001 the Accent’s reliability was improved, but not it’s performance. The drivers struggled to keep up with the big four teams (Ford, Mitsubishi, Peugeot and Subaru). Their best result that year was at the season-ending Rally GB, with McRae finishing fourth, and Eriksson sixth.
For the 2002 season, the team hired the four-time world champion Juha Kankkunen, alongside with Armin Schwarz and Freddy Loix. The best that they could do, was a fifth place in New Zealand, set by Kankkunen. But even more impressive and almost unbelievable, is that they edged out Škoda and Mitsubishi by just one point in the manufacturers’ world championship.
In September 2003, Hyundai left the WRC after a year filled with problems. They planned to make a comeback in 2006, which unfortunately didn’t take place.

A phoenixlike rebirth

When the South Korean manufacturer announced at the 2012 Paris Motor Show, that they are returning to the WRC for 2014, everybody was a bit surprised. The car that they presented there, was the Hyundai i20 WRC. Fitted with a turbocharged 1.6 L inline-4 engine, 300 bhp, four-wheel drive and a sequential 6-speed transmission, this little hatchback was ready for the rally stages of the world. The same year in December, the Hyundai Motorsport GmbH was established in Alzenau, a little town in Bavaria. It’s the Motorsport headquarter of Hyundai, which is responsible for all its global motorsport activities.

The Belgian Thierry Neuville was from the start on in 2014 the lead driver of the team, with Nicolas Gilsoul as his co-driver. He was the first driver that took a podium place for Hyundai in the WRC. At the end of the season the team was fourth, in 2015 third.

The next year the Hyundai i20 R5 was developed, a car, that privateers can buy for their own use at national rallies for example.
From 2016 to 2017, the Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team (full name), was the vice world manufacturers’ champion and Neuville the vice champion. Since 2017, the team’s car is the aggressive looking Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC. Like the previous car it has a turbocharged 1.6 L inline-4, four-wheel drive, a sequential 6-speed transmission, but 380 bhp and aerodynamics, which reminds of the legendary Group B.

But this year things look a bit different. Sébastien Ogier (M-Sport Ford World Rally Team), the five times world rally champion, is currently second in the drivers’ standings, right behind Neuville. With four more rallies to go this year, these two masters of dirt will deliver a breathtaking fight. And maybe Hyundai will win its first championship.

I hope you liked my article! This was actually the first time I did something like this, so tell me what I can do better in future posts!