Hyundai “realistic and optimistic” in mission to bridge WRC pace gap

Hyundai is realistic yet optimistic in its mission to bridge the gap to Toyota after suffering back-to-back heavy defeats at the start of the 2026 World Rally Championship.

The Korean marque had hoped to have all three cars in the fight for the podium at Rally Sweden, an event where it managed to beat Toyota to victory in 2024 with Esapekka Lappi.

However, the rally quickly developed into a test session as Hyundai resorted to trying a myriad of different set-ups across its three crews in a bid to unlock pace from its i20 N Rally1 car.

After dominating last month’s opener in Monte Carlo, Toyota became the first manufacturer since Citroen in 2010 to record back-to-back podium lockouts in the WRC, as Elfyn Evans headed a dominant 1-2-3-4.

Once again a lack of traction being generated by Hyundai’s upgraded ‘Evo’ car was at the heart of the teams’ woes in Sweden, leaving its drivers Thierry Neuville, Adrien Fourmaux and Lappi struggling for speed and confidence to compete with the Toyotas. Fourmaux ultimately ended up as the top Hyundai in fifth, albeit 1m50.3s behind Evans.  

Improvements were made across the weekend, culminating in three fastest stage times as Neuville ended the rally by taking out the Power Stage by 0.1s from rally winner Evans. This came after the 2024 world champion revealed that he had tried 30 to 35 different set-ups during the event in a quest for speed.

«I don’t know what to say,” said a frustrated Neuville, who finished a distant seventh.

“We can say that when there is still hope, there is life, but we need to put all of our courage together and try to work hard to bring us back to where we belong.

“I changed roughly 30-35 settings during the weekend and we were all on different settings at some point, and there is no difference. The braking was a disaster, basically we have no grip and lots of understeer. We are doing a lot and driving a lot but somehow we don’t work in the right direction.”

Lappi, making his return to the team for the first time since 2024, was also at a loss to explain the lack of speed compared to the car he drove to victory in Sweden two years ago. The Finn was the fastest Hyundai through the weekend before deciding to allow full-time Hyundai driver Fourmaux through to fifth on the penultimate stage.

“For sure, it was frustrating to see how far we are from the Toyotas as a team. At first I thought it was just me and that I wasn’t up to speed yet, but in the end it was not only me. But for us to be the fastest Hyundai was satisfying after one and half years away,» said Lappi.

«We are for sure lighter and we are missing the battery and the hybrid [system from 2024] and there are also many updates with the geometries. I don’t know what is wrong at the moment and why we can’t be faster than that.”

Esapekka Lappi, Enni Malkonen, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1

Photo by: Hyundai

Reflecting on the current situation the team is facing, Hyundai sporting director Andrew Wheatley said: “I think we have to be both realistic and optimistic. Realistic to understand where we are, and optimistic to try and work towards how we can bridge that gap.

“We know that there is a challenge and I don’t think anybody discounts that, and if we don’t accept the challenge head on, then we are not going to ever get to a position where we are able to fight.

“The other thing that we know is the car is fast, it has just won the Power Stage in Sweden. We need to understand how it has won the Power Stage and we need to understand how we replicate that to go forward.

“The problem is traction and how we adapt to the tyre and level of grip that we have got. That is the fundamental challenge, but I think there are a lot of other areas that we can use to potentially improve that.

“We keep hearing it from the drivers: it is about confidence and we know that this sport is about confidence, and the challenge is, we are not reaching that at the moment.

“We set three fastest times on this rally, and that is not enough out of 18 stages. We wanted to be nearer to where we were last year with seven but if the car was incapable of doing it we would be in a real problem, but it can do it. We just need to understand how we can do that consistently.”

Hyundai is expected to go testing to prepare for upcoming rounds in Kenya and Croatia in the coming weeks, which could be key in uncovering answers to its current pace concerns.

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— The Motorsport.com Team