Thierry Neuville aims to make “everyone proud again” at next week’s Rally Islas Canarias after his retirement from the lead on the final stage of Croatia.
The 2024 world champion had been 1m15.4s ahead of eventual winner Takamoto Katsuta prior to the powerstage, but made a mistake through a right-hander and clipped a concrete block with the front-right of his Hyundai.
Although Neuville made the end of the stage, he dropped 21 minutes and retired on the road section afterwards.
The Belgian was back behind the wheel this week in Portugal as Hyundai tested for round six in May, but returns to competitive action at next week’s fifth round in Gran Canaria.
“Rally Islas Canarias is probably the most straightforward Tarmac event of the season in terms of road conditions – it’s the cleanest event, with the highest grip conditions of any Tarmac rally we do,” Neuville said.
“The roads have a very circuit-like character set in the middle of a beautiful landscape, but they are very demanding and technical when it comes to pace notes. That is one of the main challenges here: making good pacenotes that you can trust, because the corners are so long.
“We have worked hard on the car, trying to make it more precise while also improving the balance. We don’t know yet what we will be able to achieve in terms of results, but if everyone gives their absolute best and we bring the car home, we can be satisfied.
“Of course we want to deliver a strong result for the team after last weekend, and we will push hard to make everyone proud again.”
Hyundai did achieve a podium in Croatia courtesy of third-placed Hayden Paddon, but victory was seen as badly needed given its early season struggles.
Sporting director Andrew Wheatley added: “There is no question that Croatia was a disappointment, in part because it was not an event that we had targeted as being competitive, so to have two cars fighting for the podium was great. But Croatia is now in the history books – we are eyes forward to the next event, Rally Islas Canaries.
Hyundai is putting the unfortunate events on Croatia behind it
“Everyone in the team knows that to beat our competitors we have to take every possible advantage and so we need to reset, re-focus and make sure we come back ready to give the best possible performance again.”
Rally Islas Canarias was a poor event for Hyundai in 2025, however, as the i20 N Rally1 only topped one of the 18 stages, and that was jointly with Sébastien Ogier’s Toyota and Yohan Rossel’s Rally2 Citroën.
“Canary Islands is an event where we need to focus on making zero mistakes – we can put ourselves in the best chance to fight for the podium on Sunday afternoon if we optimize everything,” Wheatley said.
“We will leave no stone unturned to make sure we cover every base during our preparation. That way, we can take advantage of any small issues or challenges that may arise for our competitors.
“We saw in Croatia that we have the speed to fight with Taka and Sami [Pajari], and we are confident that the recent revisions from testing will help us to continue chasing the top step of the podium.”
