For Hyundai team principal Cyril Abiteboul, comparisons between his time in Formula 1 and his new-found home – the World Rally Championship – are par for the course.
It’s only natural that after spending the majority of his career in and around the world’s most popular motorsport, he now looks at rallying through the lens of how it differs from the world he has come from. After all, that’s his only frame of reference.
But one of Abiteboul’s F1 references in particular raised more than a few eyebrows prior to Rally Japan, where he was quoted as saying he’d like his new driving recruit Ott Tänak to be Hyundai’s Max Verstappen.
The very same Verstappen that is currently dominating F1, winning an incredible 19 from 23 races in 2023 – and doing so as the undisputed number one driver at Red Bull Racing.
It’s a comparison that brings some immediate questions to mind. Does that mean Abiteboul wants Tänak to be Hyundai’s number one driver in 2024? Where does that leave Thierry Neuville? Is he going to be the team’s Sergio Pérez?
At Rally Japan, Abiteboul gave some emphatic answers:
“No, absolutely not,” he told DirtFish on the prospect of Tänak being installed as the team’s clear lead driver. “Each time you say Red Bull or Max Verstappen in a sentence with the media it turns into something different than what was expected. Anyway, I should know it.
“It was an interview in relation to Ott. What I meant by that was that I think we need to be pushed by our drivers, and in particular by Ott, in the same way that I feel like Max has been pushing [Red Bull Racing] in the last couple of years, so that they are where they are.
“Not that Thierry isn’t pushing, but Thierry has been with the team for 10 years. When you are an old couple, [together] since 10 years, you start to get a bit complacent. And it’s not Thierry’s fault, it’s not our fault. It’s like an old couple, the two are a bit at fault. So we don’t want to be complacent.
“It’s motorsport, it’s competition, you want to be pushed. And I think we deserve, and including Thierry, someone who can push the system to create a bit of discomfort.
“The idea is that Ott is going to bring a bit of this discomfort, and that’s what I meant with the reference to Max.”
While Abiteboul’s comments certainly got the WRC service park talking, they didn’t create any cause for concern for Neuville. Laughing off his team principal’s comments, and any notion of Tänak receiving preferential treatment at Hyundai, the Belgian said:
“We were [just] joking about it. Unfortunately I don’t know it came out somewhere but I know very well that we will be on equal conditions next year and he will be there to manage.
“It’s going to be tough here and there for him for sure, but yeah I’m very much confident that we will all have the same tools and all have the same information. So there’s really no reason to be concerned.”
And 2019 WRC champion Tänak isn’t reading too much into Abiteboul’s comments either, although he certainly appreciated the comparison to a certain fellow-world champion whose achievements command great respect from throughout the motorsport world.
“[He’s] not a bad driver,” quipped Tänak. “He’s doing pretty well at the moment. But still it’s quite a different discipline so quite a different lifestyle.
“We all want to dominate and clearly the team there [Red Bull Racing] is dominating as well. I mean in this way, it was kind of the idea behind why I went [to Hyundai] as well.
“It seems [Abiteboul] has a vision of which direction he wants to work, and seems to have also a bit of an idea behind it. So if we are able to make it work, nobody knows at the moment but we will find out.”
So if the Estonian is Hyundai’s Verstappen, constantly pushing the team forward, but not the team’s clear number one – then who does that make Thierry Neuville?
“He’s Sebastien Vettel.” said Abiteboul.
And who on earth does that make Abiteboul?
“I’m calling him Helmut [Marko] now!” laughed Neuville. “And he seems to enjoy it.”
