The news we all expected was delivered on Friday afternoon: Teemu Suninen will drive Hyundai’s Rally1 car for both Rally Estonia and Rally Finland.
It comes as no surprise that the driver Hyundai has already entrusted to spear its WRC2 program should be selected for two events he has always gone well on.
Perhaps the bigger news is that reigning WRC2 champion Emil Lindholm has joined the fold, jumping ship from Toksport Škoda.
It’s undoubtedly a huge opportunity for both Finns, but this isn’t the first time Hyundai has given Suninen a top-line chance.
Back in 2021 – the year when just about every single top-line driver was involved in a co-driver reshuffle – the driver market was fairly stable.
Other than Esapekka Lappi who vacated his M-Sport seat, and Adrien Fourmaux who stepped up from his WRC2 program to share the Fiesta WRC with Suninen, there were no real shockwaves.
That was until after Ypres Rally Belgium, when Suninen shocked the service park by announcing he was walking away from M-Sport – the team which gave him his first WRC shot back in 2017.
It was a bold move, but with legendary manager Timo Jouhki behind him, calculations were being made.
Suninen used the same Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 Lappi had piloted that ultimately earned him a Toyota return to win the WRC2 class in Finland, and soon he was announced as a Hyundai Motorsport driver from Rally Spain onwards – piloting the brand’s i20 N Rally2.
The 29-year-old’s driven 10 rallies for Hyundai in WRC2 since then and shown both his and the car’s speed, and he’s done a couple of tests in the Rally1 machine too.
But that’s not all he’s done.
Cast your mind back to the season-closing Monza Rally in 2021, and it was Suninen, not Ott Tänak, that drove an i20 Coupe WRC alongside team-mates Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo.
It wasn’t the most memorable event from a Hyundai perspective as Toyota drivers Sébastien Ogier and Elfyn Evans slugged it out for the world championship, and Toyota reclaimed the manufacturers’ title Hyundai had pinched for the past two seasons.
But with Tänak missing the event for family reasons, Suninen was given the nod.
His pace was nothing spectacular as he came home a solid sixth, behind fellow i20 pilots Neuville, Sordo and Oliver Solberg in the 2C Compétition example, but Suninen did all he could in the circumstances given the last-minute nature of the call up.
And he’s done plenty since back in the Rally2 car to convince Hyundai’s management that he is worthy of a shot in the big league once again.
One thing is for sure though: he will be desperate to make more of an impression on his second big Hyundai chance. And there’s every chance that he will do just that.
