For Hyundai, the biggest question at the start of this week’s Central European Rally was whether Thierry Neuville would be a world champion by Sunday. There was, however, another topic being discussed behind closed doors: the potential for Dani Sordo to play a leading role in the Korean team next season.
Is Dani Sordo about to be named Hyundai team principal? Unlikely. But DirtFish sources have indicated he will take up a senior position, reporting to Hyundai Motorsport president Cyril Abiteboul.
Abiteboul is expected to step away from a full-time WRC commitment to direct the firm’s World Endurance Championship effort which begins with sister brand Genesis in 2026.
Sordo flew into Prague for the start of the Central European Rally, having spent time with in Seoul with Hyundai management. DirtFish asked him if he’d talked about his future and if that future involved the management of the team.
“I’m not the right person to talk about this,” he said. “I think Cyril needs to [be] asked this question.
Sordo has driven for Hyundai ever since it returned to the WRC in 2014, but a new career looms
“For sure, Cyril can’t do all [things] now because he can’t make both projects at the same time. Now he has experience in rallying, but he was born in the circuit, so he loves the circuit. But I don’t know. If I do something, I will do it with all the team together and everybody, not only me because I couldn’t run a team like this alone.
“But to put the people together and to motivate the people and to make them all try to work in one direction, let’s see what happens.
“I don’t know, it’s something like I never did and for sure I don’t have experience in this. I have experience in rally, I know the rallies from many, many years. But it’s like when you make the interviews to everybody, it’s what you did all your life so for you it’s quite simple – but if I start to make your job, for me it will be much more complicated because I don’t have experience. For me to be in the rallies and to choose tyres and to know everything is quite easy because I did it for many, many years. But let’s see, I don’t know.”
Sordo wants to do one more rally next year, which is understood to be Portugal
DirtFish understands Sordo has requested one final Rally1 outing next season – which is reckoned to be at Rally of Portugal, the WRC round closest to where he was raised and where his Karting LaRoca firm is based in Cantabria.
“For many years we have been talking about when I will stop,” said Sordo. “I would like to, if I stop, to make a race, to say it’s the last one or something. For sure it’s so difficult decision when you say you need to stop the driving and doing what you do all your life. And you always want more, you know. And also with last rallies have been good for me, so I was making good results. But yeah, at one point you need to stop.”
Asked if he had other options beyond staying with Hyundai next season, Sordo concluded: “Rally is part of my life, but without rally you can live also. There are many other small things I can do. Of course, if I don’t drive, I will miss this. I don’t know, maybe I do this other job, and I will miss driving. I was born driving, and I still want to drive but you can’t have everything in life.”
Sordo has been a permanent fixture at Hyundai since the firm returned to the WRC in 2014. His position as a driver is under threat with the likely return to a full-time third driver for next season. Speculation remains that Adrien Fourmaux will be named as that driver in the next month. The Frenchman remained tight-lipped, telling DirtFish only that he knew where he would be driving in 2025.
