Thierry Neuville has questioned the deployment of new parts running on his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 for the first time at last week’s Rally Poland.
Hyundai has been on a process of evolution with an i20 that was late to the Rally1 party at the top of the homologation cycle in 2022. Recently revised regulations around the deployment of homologation jokers – allowing the teams to use two years’ worth of jokers in one season – has accelerated the potential for specification change. With that in mind, Hyundai ran new engine mapping to give the cars improved top speed in Poland.
While Neuville is all about innovation and improvement, he felt these parts came too early.
“We did some development tests [on the new parts],” he told DirtFish. “For me personally, it wasn’t ready yet to bring it to the rally. Obviously there were two or three more days of testing after I left the test and they improved it. But, for me, it’s still not on point and I don’t feel so comfortable with it.”
Neuville eventually finished fifth in Poland, dropping three points to title rival Elfyn Evans
The championship leader wasn’t keen on the feel from the car with the new mapping.
“There are still some issues under braking,” he explained. “There wasn’t much more we could do on the event beyond the small adjustments. We had to homologate the new software and there are only a few days in the year where you can do that.”
For team principal Cyril Abiteboul, the frustration was two-fold when it came to Neuviulle’s team-mate Ott Tänak. The Estonian’s sister car was also fitted with the new parts, only for his event to be cut short in the most unfortunate of circumstances after hitting a deer at close to 120mph.
“When you look at the amount of effort the team put into the preparation for that rally, it was a joker that we rushed to introduce into the car in order to have a bit extra top speed,” Abiteboul said. “When that happens, it’s very frustrating. We know it’s the sport, this is rallying and it can happen, but sometimes it feels a little unfair.”
Hyundai is working on a solution for Neuville ahead of Rally Latvia later this month, but with this map being a newly homologated part, once it’s fitted to the car, DirtFish understands, it cannot be removed retrospectively from that chassis.
