Thierry Neuville believes the World Rally Championship, not just Hyundau, can benefit from Cyril Abiteboul’s appointment as the team’s new team principal.
Abiteboul has joined Hyundai despite not having any rally experience on his CV. However, that’s caveated by the amount of time he has been involved in high level management in F1, which amounts to 11 years; seven of which were spent as the managing director of Renault Sport F1.
Some could view Abiteboul’s lack of rally experience as a disadvantage as he looks to turn Hyundai’s WRC fortunes around, but Neuville isn’t so sure, pointing out that his F1 experience could bode well for both the team and the championship itself.
“I don’t know how he will make a change, this is his job,” Neuville said to DirtFish when asked how Abiteboul will improve things at Hyundai.
“We have a structure in place and you can’t change anything from one day to the other. So I guess that he will be observing and slowly taking his actions to improve with his experience and his knowledge by managing more than 500/600 people in a team, where we are 250.
“Hopefully he can bring a bit of those experiences into rallying in general. I mean not only for the team but I think he has a lot of experience working with the FIA, being constructive, working with promoters of WRC.
“So I think he will not only be positive for Hyundai but for the whole WRC which needs somebody like him with that kind of experience.”
But while Neuville is hopeful that Abiteboul can introduce some learnings from F1 into WRC, he has warned his boss that he could be in for a bit of a culture shock when he gets to Monte Carlo.
“I told him ‘don’t be shocked at the beginning’ because obviously you go to media zones and you have five journalists and two TV, it’s not like in Formula 1,” explained Neuville.
“But he told me that’s a good sign, that means there’s a lot of work left and much more potential.
“I think that’s the right way to see it, but hopefully he gets the power and the people listening. Will be interesting anyhow.”
