Hyundai Motorsports has two full-time drivers who take part in every round of the World Rally Championship. These are the Estonian Ott Tänak, 2019 world champion, and the Belgian Thierry Neuville, runner-up from 2016 to 2019.

 The Alzenau-based outfit then decides who will sit behind the wheel of the third i20 Coupé at each appointment, depending on its particular characteristics. Its floating drivers are also two: the Spaniard Dani Sordo and the Irish Craig Breen, who alternate in this task. 

The legendary African rally returns to the World Rally Championship calendar after almost two decades of absence. It is because of these that the team directed by Andrea Adamo lacked any reference as to how each of its part-time pilots, Sordo and Breen, might perform at the event. In the end, the balance has tipped in favour of the Spaniard’s experience, who has taken part in sixteen editions of the WRC. 

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 Portugal, Italia and Kenia: Three races in one month 

The Safari Rally will be the fourth confirmed entry of the Spaniard in the current WRC season after starring in Monte Carlo, and having already been selected to represent Hyundai in Portugal (May 20-23) and Italy-Sardinia (June 3-6). 

Next week, at the Portuguese Rally, the Spanish rider will share the cockpit of the i20 with his new co-driver and compatriot, Borja Rozada, for the first time. Fifteen days after that, Sordo will be chasing his third consecutive victory at the Italian insular test,  after having won the 2019 and 2020 editions. 

The intense schedule, comprising three races in a row during a single month, will end with the Safari Rally in Kenya (June 24-27), where neither Sordo nor Breen have ever competed. The African race was one of the WRC’s classic rounds, but it had been absent from the calendar since 2002. 

The Spanish Rally and perhaps the Acropolis  

After the summer, Sordo and Rozada will compete in their home round, the Rally Spain-Catalonia (October 14-17). Also, according to rumours, Sordo could be chosen to take part in the Rally Acropolis in Greece, (September 9 -12), where he has already visited the podium on several occasions. If the news is confirmed, that would be the sixth round for the Spaniard in the 2021 program. 

Images of Dani Sordo: Hyundai Motorsport.