Hello, goodbye. You say goodbye and I say hello.
Is Dani Sordo a fan of The Beatles? If he’s not, he should be. He missed the chance to say goodbye, so now he’s saying hello. Again.
When the Spaniard stepped out of a Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid after finishing second on the 2024 Acropolis Rally, he didn’t have the chance to say goodbye, he didn’t say goodbye the way he wanted.
Back for last week’s Rally Islas Canarias, he finished seventh for the Korean squad and is now looking forward to another outing in Portugal next week. After one more hello, he will now get his moment to bid farewell the way he wants.
“This is the comeback I was dreaming [of] last year,” Sordo told DirtFish. “I didn’t have the opportunity to at least to say bye to the people. I just disappeared in Greece. So, I have this second chance, and I put all what I can from my side. I just prepared like ever, and I was preparing with the car, with the team and all. I give all. I leave everything to be competitive.
Sordo wound back the years to deliver sensational form and strong times through Friday's stages
“The first day was quite good. I think others were not in a really, really good pace and I was good from the beginning. And then they started to push a little bit more, they changed the set-up of the car and they were better. But, I don’t know, it was difficult to be there in the pace. With the Hyundais, we were a little bit… Adrien [Fourmaux] was a little bit faster in general, but for the rest, it was OK.”
Sordo now turns his attentions to Matosinhos and an event he loves in a country where he is national champion.
“We need to fight for being in the front [in Portugal],” he added. “We need to change the mind and just to go there for being [at] the top and flat out.”
Hyundai’s sporting director Andrew Wheatley was instrumental in bringing Sordo back to a factory i20 for a seat he shares with Esapekka Lappi and Hayden Paddon.
Wheatley explained the thinking, saying: “Dani Sordo is in this team this year because we know he can bring that magic spark to the gravel events. That was the intention with his program this year – we know he has that ability to be able to find himself fighting for the podium every time he comes out.
“It was about, first of all, bringing Dani’s experience on Spanish Tarmac. It’s a long time since he’s been considered a Tarmac driver, but he’s a very, very efficient driver, a super, super smooth driving style, and that’s been really positive, helping the team to understand a little bit more about the car.
“But the most important thing was to get him to have 300 kilometers behind the wheel, getting back to what’s required to be competing at the front of these rallies. It’s not easy to compete at the front, but immediately you saw a relaxed Dani Sordo being competitive against his team-mates from the very first stage and that’s been a big tick from this weekend. We know that Dani can go to Portugal now with a lot of the doubts and issues behind him, and he can just focus on his performance at that rally.”
Next week will be Sordo’s 17th start at Rally Portugal, an event he’s finished on the podium seven times.
Regardless of the result, if this is the end of Sordo’s road with the team he’s been part of since 2014, at least he gets the chance to say goodbye.
