Hyundai WRT is holding a team meeting this week to examine what happened at Monte Carlo Rally, where they were they displayed the worst performance of the three WRC teams by far. The talk is expected to concern primarily the lack of reliability of the i20 N Rally1, which has notoriously fallen behind Toyota and M-Sport.  

Their disastrous results in the opening round of the 2022 World Rally Championship are a disappointing and worrying start to the hybrid era for the team. Of the three Hyundai vehicles that took the start at Casino Square in Monaco on Thursday, only Thierry Neuville made it to the finish line. 

The Belgian racer finished in sixth place, and over six minutes behind winner Seb Loeb, after breaking the front right damper. Overall, the race was a bit of a nightmare for the 2017-2019 runner-up, who was unhappy with his machine behaviour right from the start. Starting on Friday – the first full day of racing- he already made a comment that the driving was ‘scary’. 

Speaking of the blatant shortcomings of the South Korean rocket, the champion from Saint Vith admitted that they still have a lot of work ahead of them to become competitive. He did everything he could but in the end, the unpleasant technical surprises he had to face throughout the race left him thoroughly disappointed. 

Tänak crashes and Solberg gets exhaust fumes’ poisoning

Neuville’s performance, however, can be considered heroic if you compare it to that of his teammates. Both Ott Tänak and Oliver Solberg had to retire before the end of the round for different reasons. 

In the case of the latter, the team decided to withdraw him from the competition, after both the Swedish driver and his co-driver, Elliott Edmondson, were feeling unwell due to the inhalation of exhaust fumes that had been entering the cabin over the past two days. 

It was precisely Soberg’s state, and his inability to concentrate, that caused him to run off track. As a result of that incident, the couple lost over thirty minutes and any chance to shine on the peaks of the Principality. 

Tänak, for his part, was knocked out of the game at the 11th stage on Saturday night. After using his only spare tire on a first puncture, he suffered a small crash which caused a second one, and this was the end of Monte Carlo for the Estonian. 

https://twitter.com/OliverSolberg01/status/1486388336013066245

Emergency meeting 

The team has now scheduled a meeting to discuss the various problems that arose in the legendary Monte Carlo Rally. Deputy team director, Julien Moncet, will be leading the discussion since Hyundai continues without a clear head after the unexpected departure of previous team manager, Andrea Adamo.  

The myriad of technical issues; the unreliable engine, the problems in the hybrid system, as well as in the suspension, add up for a very complicated situation, and although, still early days to make the necessary changes, there is no doubt that alarm bells are ringing at the Alzenau headquarters. 

Trying to convey a message of calm, Moncet explained that they were aware of their weakness with respect to their opponents since they had started working on their hybrid technology earlier on. He has, however, confessed that the situation is ‘bad’, although they still have a month to fix things before the second round in Sweden. 

“It has been a very tough rally. We knew coming here would be difficult. We finished the cars just in time. We had a lot of work to do over the last weeks, so we knew it would be challenging. When you start a race, you always expect for more and we are just not where we would like to be” – Moncet told Motorsport.com -. 

Source: Motorsport.com.

Images: Hyundai WRT.