Hyundai made a conscious decision when it moved its permanent test site from Finland to France for 2026.
“The reason the team moved to Finland was for a particular requirement to build more performance,” sporting director Andrew Wheatley told DirtFish in January.
“While, maybe, the results don’t necessarily reflect that performance, in places like Estonia and Finland last year, the car was working. The car was fast in Estonia and Finland, and I think that is valuable, and it has effectively done its job.”
Fast forward the clock six months, and there’s a bit more caution in Wheatley’s voice.
Relocating to Fontjoncouse made sense, and still makes sense, but Wheatley knows that this week’s Rally Estonia – and Rally Finland two weeks later – were the compromise of relocating the test site. The team has profited from testing on rougher roads, but the trade off is less high-speed time.
We will be relying on the experience developed in previous yearsAndrew Wheatley
Toyota, on the other hand, has had the benefit of being able to test on high-speed rallies as much as it likes with its permanent test facility still in Jyväskylä.
“As always, the biggest challenge in Estonia will be our competitors,” Wheatley said.
“In 2026, Hyundai made a change to our nominated test road – we moved the test road from Finland to the south of France. The idea behind this was to help the team develop the parts required to compete on the four rough gravel rallies in the season, as well as to support the Tarmac development program.
“However, this means that we will not have the same opportunity for unlimited testing on the high-speed gravel roads and jumps that we see in Estonia and Finland.
Hyundai drivers were fastest on half of Rally Estonia's stages in 2025
“The team has done three days of testing in Estonia before transferring to Finland to continue the program, but we will be relying on the experience developed in previous years to support the changes made to the car for 2026.
“The other challenge will be the weather. The bulk of the testing has taken place in sunshine and dry road conditions; however, there is a chance that rain could fall in the week before the rally, which would significantly change the required setup and could also give an advantage to the cars running at the front of the field.”
It would be wrong to say Hyundai is not confident. Wheatley believes the “fundamentals of the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 are in place to support a strong push” while Thierry Neuville has said the “goal is clear: to fight for victory”.
But having matched Toyota’s GR Yaris Rally1 for raw pace in Estonia and Finland in 2025, will the move in test location have cost Hyundai performance this time around?
