Hyundai Motorsport

Hyundai Motorsport

Full name	Hyundai Shell World Rally Team
Base	Alzenau, Germany
Team principal(s)	Michel Nandan
Technical director	Alain Penasse
Drivers	Thierry Neuville, Dani Sordo, Hayden Paddon, Kevin Abbring
Co-drivers	Nicolas Gilsoul, Marc Martí, John Kennard, Sebastian Marshall
Chassis	Hyundai i20
Tyres	Michelin
World Rally Championship career
Debut	2000
Constructors' Championships	0
Drivers' Championships	0
Rally wins	2

Hyundai Motor Group sports
Football (Men's)	Football (Women's)	Baseball
Volleyball (Men's)	Volleyball (Women's)	Basketball
Archery (Men's)	Archery (Women's)	Rugby
Motorsport

Alister McRae driving an Accent WRC at the 2001 Rally Finland.

Hyundai Motorsport began when Hyundai competed in the F2 class of the World Rally Championship in 1998 and 1999. It was run by British company Motor Sports Development (MSD), with David Whitehead as team principal. In September 1999, Hyundai unveiled the Accent WRC, a World Rally Car based on the Hyundai Accent. The Hyundai World Rally Team debuted the car at the 2000 Swedish Rally and achieved their first top-ten result at that year's Rally Argentina, when Alister McRae and Kenneth Eriksson finished seventh and eighth, respectively. Eriksson later drove the car to fifth place in New Zealand and fourth in Australia. In 2001, Hyundai debuted a new evolution of the Accent WRC, which was intended to improve reliability, but the performance of the car was still not good enough to challenge the four big teams (Ford World Rally Team, Mitsubishi, Peugeot and Subaru). However, at the season-ending Rally GB, the team achieved their best result with McRae finishing fourth and Eriksson sixth.

For the 2002 season, Hyundai hired the four-time world champion Juha Kankkunen, along with Freddy Loix and Armin Schwarz. Kankkunen's fifth place in New Zealand was the team's best result, but they managed to edge out Škoda and Mitsubishi by one point in the battle for fourth place in the manufacturers' world championship. In September 2003, after a season hampered by budget constraints, Hyundai announced their withdrawal from the WRC ending the partnership with MSD, and planned to return in 2006 which didn't happen.^[1]

Hyundai announced at the 2012 Paris Motor Show that they would be returning to the WRC for 2014, using the i20 model built to World Rally Car specifications. Hyundai also announced that their official test drivers for 2013 would be Juho Hänninen, Bryan Bouffier and Chris Atkinson.

On the 19th of December, 2012 Hyundai Motorsport GmbH was established in Alzenau, Germany, as responsible for Hyundai’s global motorsport activities and primarily for its World Rally Championship programme.

Thierry Neuville was confirmed as lead driver of Hyundai Motorsport's World Rally Championship programme from 2014. Neuville, along with his co-driver Nicolas Gilsoul, will pilot Hyundai’s new i20 WRC in all 13 WRC events in 2014, beginning with the team’s debut at the Monte-Carlo Rally in January. Thierry Neuville was the first driver that scored a top-three finish for Hyundai in the WRC. He ended third in Rally Guanajuato México 2014.^[2] He and Hyundai also won their very 1st rally at that years' ADAC Rallye Deutschland.

2L-MC era (1998–1999)

Year	Car	Driver	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	2L MC	Points
1998	Hyundai Coupé Kit Car	Kenneth Eriksson	MON	SWE	KEN	POR Ret	ESP 7	FRA	ARG Ret	GRE Ret							5th	17
	Hyundai Coupé Kit Car Evo2										NZL 3	FIN Ret	ITA Ret	AUS 3	GBR Ret
	Hyundai Coupé Kit Car	Wayne Bell	MON	SWE	KEN	POR 4	ESP	FRA	ARG	GRE Ret
	Hyundai Coupé Kit Car Evo2										NZL Ret	FIN Ret	ITA Ret	AUS Ret	GBR Ret
	Hyundai Coupé Kit Car	Alister McRae	MON	SWE	KEN	POR	ESP 6	FRA 5	ARG	GRE	NZL	FIN	ITA	AUS	GBR
1999	Hyundai Coupé Kit Car Evo2	Kenneth Eriksson	MON	SWE Ret	KEN	POR 2	ESP Ret	FRA	ARG	GRE 1	NZL 1	FIN Ret	CHN 2	ITA Ret	AUS 1	GBR	2nd	95
		Alister McRae	MON	SWE Ret	KEN	POR 1	ESP Ret	FRA	ARG	GRE Ret	NZL 2	FIN 3	CHN 1	ITA Ret	AUS 3	GBR Ret

WRC era

Year	Entrant	Car	No	Driver	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	WDC	Points	WMC	Points
2000	Hyundai Castrol World Rally Team	Hyundai Accent WRC	14	Kenneth Eriksson	MON	SWE 13	KEN	POR Ret	ESP 23	ARG 8	GRE Ret	NZL 5	FIN 15	CYP	FRA Ret	ITA 45	AUS 4	GBR Ret	11th	5	7th	8
			15	Alister McRae	MON	SWE 14	KEN	POR Ret	ESP Ret	ARG 7	GRE Ret	NZL Ret	FIN 9	CYP	FRA 12	ITA 16	AUS Ret	GBR 11	–	0
			15	Michael Guest													AUS Ret	GBR	–	0
	Hyundai Winfield Rally Team				MON	SWE	KEN	POR	ESP	ARG	GRE	NZL	FIN 30	CYP	FRA	ITA Ret					–	0
2001	Hyundai Castrol World Rally Team	Hyundai Accent WRC2	9	Piero Liatti	MON Ret			ESP Ret							ITA Ret	FRA 8			–	0	5th	17
				Kenneth Eriksson		SWE 8	POR 7		ARG Ret	CYP Ret	GRE Ret	KEN	FIN 12	NZL 10			AUS 12	GBR 6	21st	1
			10	Alister McRae	MON 7	SWE Ret	POR 6	ESP 11	ARG 9	CYP 7	GRE 15	KEN	FIN 13	NZL 9	ITA Ret	FRA 9	AUS 10	GBR 4	17th	4
			20	Piero Liatti		SWE	POR		ARG	CYP Ret	GRE	KEN						GBR Ret	–	0
				Juha Kankkunen	MON			ESP					FIN Ret	NZL	ITA	FRA	AUS		–	0
2002	Hyundai Castrol World Rally Team	Hyundai Accent WRC3	17	Armin Schwarz	MON Ret	SWE Ret	FRA 13	ESP 16	CYP 7	ARG Ret	GRE 9	KEN Ret	FIN 13	GER Ret	ITA Ret	NZL 10	AUS Ret	GBR Ret	–	0	4th	10
			18	Freddy Loix	MON Ret	SWE Ret	FRA 9	ESP 10	CYP Ret	ARG Ret	GRE Ret	KEN Ret	FIN 9	GER Ret	ITA 28	NZL 6	AUS Ret	GBR 8	17th	1
			19	Juha Kankkunen	MON	SWE 8		ESP	CYP Ret	ARG 7	GRE Ret	KEN 8	FIN Ret	GER	ITA	NZL 5	AUS Ret	GBR 9	14th	2
				Tomasz Kuchar			FRA Ret												–	0
			27		MON	SWE		ESP	CYP 14	ARG	GRE	KEN	FIN	GER	ITA	NZL	AUS	GBR	–	0
2003	Hyundai World Rally Team	Hyundai Accent WRC3	10	Armin Schwarz	MON 8	SWE 13	TUR Ret	NZL Ret	ARG Ret	GRE Ret	CYP 7	GER 12	FIN 12	AUS 13	ITA	FRA	ESP	GBR	15th	3	6th	12
			11	Freddy Loix	MON Ret	SWE 10	TUR 10	NZL Ret	ARG Ret	GRE Ret	CYP Ret	GER 11	FIN 10	AUS 8	ITA	FRA	ESP	GBR	13th*	4*
			11	Jussi Välimäki	MON	SWE Ret	TUR	NZL Ret	ARG	GRE Ret			FIN Ret	AUS	ITA	FRA	ESP	GBR	–	0
				Justin Dale							CYP Ret								–	0
				Manfred Stohl								GER 18							19th*	2*
			25	Justin Dale	MON	SWE	TUR	NZL	ARG	GRE		GER 28	FIN	AUS	ITA	FRA	ESP	GBR	–	0
2014	Hyundai Shell World Rally Team	Hyundai i20 WRC	7	Thierry Neuville	MON Ret	SWE 28	MEX 3	POR 7	ARG 5	ITA 16	POL 3	FIN Ret	GER 1	AUS 7	FRA 8	ESP 6	GBR 4		6th	105	4th	187
			8	Daniel Sordo	MON Ret				ARG Ret				GER 2		FRA 4	ESP 5			10th	40
				Juho Hänninen		SWE 19		POR 8		ITA Ret	POL 6	FIN 6					GBR 26		13th	20
				Chris Atkinson			MEX 7							AUS 10					18th	7
	Hyundai Motorsport N		20	Daniel Sordo				POR Ret											–	0	7th	28
				Hayden Paddon						ITA 12	POL 8	FIN 8		AUS 6		ESP 9	GBR 10		14th	19
				Bryan Bouffier									GER Ret		FRA 9				12th*	20*
2015	Hyundai Motorsport	Hyundai i20 WRC	7	Thierry Neuville	MON 5	SWE 2	MEX 8	ARG Ret	POR 39	ITA 3	POL 6	FIN 4	GER 5	AUS 7	FRA 23	ESP 8			6th	90	3rd	224
				Dani Sordo													GBR Ret		8th	89
			8		MON 6		MEX 5	ARG 5	POR 6	ITA 20	POL 10	FIN 11	GER 4		FRA 7	ESP 3
				Hayden Paddon		SWE 5								AUS 5			GBR 5		9th	84
	Hyundai Motorsport N		20		MON		MEX 17	ARG 16	POR 8	ITA 2	POL 4	FIN Ret	GER 9		FRA 5	ESP 6					6th	67
				Dani Sordo										AUS 8					8th*	89*
				Thierry Neuville													GBR Ret		6th	90
				Kevin Abbring		SWE 11													-	0
			10		MON		MEX	ARG	POR	ITA	POL 15	FIN	GER 11	AUS	FRA Ret	ESP	GBR Ret
2016	Hyundai Motorsport	Hyundai i20 WRC	3	Thierry Neuville	MON 3	SWE 14	MEX Ret	ARG 6			POL 4	FIN 4	GER 3	CHN C	FRA 2	ESP 3	GBR 3	AUS 3	2nd	160	2nd	312
				Hayden Paddon					POR Ret	ITA Ret									4th	138
			4	Dani Sordo	MON 6		MEX 4	ARG 4	POR 4	ITA 4			GER 2	CHN C	FRA 7	ESP 2	GBR 6		5th	130
				Hayden Paddon		SWE 2					POL 3	FIN 5						AUS 4	4th	138
	Hyundai Motorsport N		10	Hayden Paddon	MON 25																5th	146
				Kevin Abbring		SWE	MEX	ARG	POR Ret	ITA 15	POL		GER	CHN	FRA	ESP 7	GBR	AUS	16th	10
			20	Dani Sordo		SWE 6					POL Ret							AUS 5	5th	130
				Hayden Paddon			MEX 5	ARG 1					GER 5	CHN C	FRA 6	ESP 4	GBR 4		4th	138
				Thierry Neuville					POR 29	ITA 1									2nd	160
				Kevin Abbring	MON							FIN 9							16th	10

References

1. "Hyundai to quit World Rally". BBC. 2003-09-17. Retrieved 2008-11-03.
2. http://www.wrc.com/news/neuville-signs-with-hyundai-for-2014/?fid=19344

External links

• Official website
• Hyundai Motorsport on Facebook
• Hyundai Motorsport on Twitter
  
• YouTube