Hyundai shelves its 2025 WRC car upgrades for Safa...

Hyundai insists it has made the “better option” to contest subsequent week’s Safari Rally Kenya with out its a lot anticipated 2025 automotive replace bundle that debuted in Sweden final month.

The South Korean producer will head to Africa for the hardest occasion on the WRC calendar with a trio of i20 N Rally1 automobiles competing within the specification that ended the 2024 marketing campaign (minus the hybrid unit and with the air restrictor modifications as per the 2025 technical rules).

Hyundai spent a lot of final 12 months engaged on a major improve bundle for 2025, utilising 4 homologation jokers to enhance its i20 N for drivers Thierry Neuville, Ott Tanak and new signing Adrien Fourmaux. The enhancements centred round a revised suspension structure and weight discount.

This bundle made its debut on Sweden’s snow phases final month with crew principal Cyril Abiteboul moderately pleased with the efficiency regardless of the upgrades being primarily designed for gravel and asphalt rallies.

Nevertheless, a mixture of things has prompted the crew to place these updates on ice for the go to to Kenya subsequent week, earlier than returning to its full 2025 bundle. Abiteboul is, nevertheless, assured that the choice received’t have an effect on the crew’s efficiency.

“[The car we will use] would be the end-of-2024 specification, so it’s not the spec that ran in Kenya final 12 months as a result of clearly we had plenty of points after Kenya significantly round transmission [that were addressed], in order that automotive isn’t what’s going to run in Kenya this 12 months,” Abiteboul informed Motorsport.com.

“It’s a choice we’ve got made to optimise the provision of elements as we had a really busy winter as we obtained the 2025 specification very late and that made it very marginal to make it with the freight [to Kenya]. It was a little bit of an optimisation of the general operation that led to this choice.

“We don’t suppose that when it comes to efficiency there will likely be any deficit or make a giant distinction. It’s all about reliability and sign-off and mileage [on the parts] and general the selection to run the automotive because it was on the finish of 2024 was higher than working the 2025 automotive.

“There was nothing flawed with [the updates in Sweden] however frankly we didn’t actually design these modifications for Sweden for snow, we designed these modifications for the circumstances we face this 12 months, which is especially gravel and a little bit of Tarmac.

“However in the event you have a look at Thierry and Adrien, by the tip of the weekend it is vitally clear that the efficiency of the automotive was there or thereabouts.”

Whereas Hyundai’s WRC challenger will likely be with out its 2025 updates, it’s going to characteristic a brand new improve particular for the rigours of Kenya’s notoriously powerful gravel roads.

The crew has developed a revised snorkel. Snorkels are gadgets that protrude from the bonnet of the automotive designed to guard the engine from ingesting water or mud, which can have an effect on combustion and might even severely harm the engine. It’s significantly efficient on the Safari Rally, which options thick fesh-fesh sand and deep water splashes.

“We can have a greater instance of the one we used final 12 months – [last year’s snorkel] was perhaps a bit fundamental, so this additionally exhibits a few of the homework that we’ve got accomplished,” added Abiteboul.

Homework addressed in difficult pre-event take a look at

Sole Hyundai Kenyan podium got here in 2021

Picture by: Austral / Hyundai Motorsport

Kenya has confirmed to be a very difficult rally for Hyundai, because it has solely recorded one podium end from its 4 makes an attempt, when Tanak completed third in 2021. Chief rival Toyota has received each version since its return to the calendar in 2021, scoring a dominant 1-2-3-4 in each 2022 and 2023.

Reliability points have largely been Hyundai’s downfall however the crew has centered on addressing these considerations after every go to to Kenya. The issue fixing has continued within the lead as much as subsequent week’s third spherical of the championship following a difficult pre-event take a look at, held in troublesome circumstances, that highlighted {an electrical} frailty.

“Hopefully we’ve got made a step however what I do know for certain is that each situation we confronted final 12 months in Kenya has been addressed – however every time we go to Kenya we appear to unearth new points,” stated Abiteboul.

“We truly had fairly an eventful pre-event take a look at for Kenya the place we noticed one thing that was not precisely on the stage we wish, significantly whether it is raining so much.

“The pre-event take a look at was difficult for the crew and I’ve to provide credit score to the crew for doing a really robust job to provide most preparation to the drivers.

“But it surely exhibits that it’s not a straightforward problem. I choose to search out these reliability points within the take a look at relatively than through the rally. We had been speaking about doing our homework, however that field is ticked.”

Safari Rally Kenya begins subsequent Thursday with the primary of 21 phases.