Hyundai’s full-time World Rally Championship drivers have spoken of their relief that sealed-surface events won’t feature in the second half of the 2026 season, after being roundly beaten by Toyota on asphalt again at last week’s Rally Japan.
Toyota took a clean sweep of stage wins for the second consecutive asphalt rally, having locked out the top times on Rally Islas Canarias in April.
Thierry Neuville had briefly fought among the Toyotas for overall position on Friday morning in damp, cooler conditions where soft compound tires were the best choice; as soon as he switched to hards, he plummeted down the classification from fourth to seventh – only climbing to sixth when Oliver Solberg crashed.
“Usually I would be disappointed to end the Tarmac season already,” Neuville told DirtFish, who scored three sealed-surface victories during the Rally1 era. “But this time I’m not. That says it all, no?
Neuville repeatedly expressed frustration at poor car balance on the hard compound tire on multiple rallies, with understeer sapping his confidence
“It’s true that on Tarmac especially I’ve been really struggling just because I have no confidence.
“I was three seconds slower than my best time two years ago in the powerstage, where Toyota was two seconds faster. And on the first pass I was seven seconds slower where Toyota was four to six seconds faster, so the gap is there.”
Though team-mate Adrien Fourmaux was less frustrated by the understeer issues that plagued Neuville, he too expressed relief that there would be no more asphalt rallies for the rest of the 2026 season.
“Well, I feel a bit sad today, because it was very great to drive this car on Tarmac,” said Fourmaux. “Not only on Tarmac, but for sure on Tarmac there was something very special, with the aero and the performance of the car, it was very nice.
“At the end it’s also a bit of a relief for me because the Tarmac, I feel that it was a bit of a nightmare for us. So now we can start the championship on gravel.”
Echoing those sentiments, Neuville also has his sights firmly fixed on the upcoming sequence of seven gravel rounds in a row: “We need to be strong,” he said.
“I think generally feeling more comfortable with the car on gravel, it will be more competitive. I would be surprised if it is not.”
Despite long-running struggles on asphalt events with the post-hybrid version of the i20 N Rally1, the team’s sporting director Andrew Wheatley suggested its Japan performance actually fell short of its pre-event expectations.
Hayden Paddon's Croatia podium is the only silverware Hyundai has won on asphalt in 2026
“I think there’s a little bit of frustration on this event, to be honest,” said Wheatley. “We came here hoping for a little bit more.
“We knew that winning or first or second or maybe third was very difficult but we’re probably two tenths [per kilometer] away from where we expected to be. That’s a combination of the conditions which have either been wetter or hotter than works in our window.”
