The 2026 return of Hayden Paddon, Esapekka Lappi and Dani Sordo to Hyundai Motorsport understandably raised questions among some of the sport’s younger drivers: why the old guard and not the next generation?
Before settling on its third i20 N Rally1-sharing trio, Hyundai considered 35 drivers for that seat this season. The team’s sporting director Andrew Wheatley talked DirtFish through his spreadsheet.
“Obviously this was not an easy decision,” said Wheatley. “We’d spent a lot of time talking and thinking about it and we put data around it, as you’d expect. I produced a database, a spreadsheet of results with detail of how those results correlate with other results, including mechanical issues, the number of punctures, the number of other issues and other factors – this produced what was, effectively, a performance number for each driver on each event.
“That gave us an indication of what their average potential performance would be on that event – it wasn’t overly complicated, it was between one and 10. That gave us a picture of what the potential result was going to be. We then considered which drivers had experience with the team and if they didn’t, how long would it take for them to adapt, which are their key performance events etc.
“We reviewed every potential option coming out of Rally2 cars – that’s all the drivers that have shown real pace in Rally2, and there’s a number of them, there’s a lot of drivers. When you start digging down into the data, my database had something like 35 drivers. There were plenty with good standout performances.
Wheatley considered a lot of drivers to partner Neuville and Fourmaux, but eventually settled on three
“But when you say to those drivers: ‘OK, let’s go to Monte Carlo, and I don’t want you to finish first, second, or third. I want you to be fourth or fifth, possibly sixth.’ That’s a really difficult thing to set a driver [who doesn’t have experience]. And for their first time in a Rally1 car with limited testing, it’s nigh on impossible.
“This decision was less about how far you can kick the ball and more about how often you drop it. Esapekka [Lappi], Hayden [Paddon] and Dani [Sordo] all won a national title in 2025 – we know they’re match fit.”
Next week’s season-opening Monte Carlo Rally will be Paddon’s first factory start at the sport’s highest level since he signed off from Hyundai with a second place on the 2018 Rally Australia.
“It’s unrealistic to come to Monte and be competitive,” Paddon told DirtFish. “We’re driving the car for the first time 10 days before the rally and it’s a rally I haven’t done for a long time, so I’ve got to bring my own expectations back in check and do the job for the team.
“For this particular rally that’s to finish, and we’ve just got to focus on that.”
