Neuville slams Hankook tyres at WRC Acropolis Rally

Thierry Neuville has said the World Rally Championship’s Hankook control tyres are “not on the level” they should be after suffering a series of problems during Acropolis Rally Greece. 

The reigning world champion cut a frustrated figure on Friday after suffering punctures in back-to-back stages, resulting in the Belgian dropping from the rally lead to eighth. 

Neuville wasn’t the only driver to suffer tyre problems: all of the Rally1 field, except his Hyundai team-mate Adrien Fourmaux, either picked up tyre damage or punctures while navigating through the rough gravel stages.

To make matters worse for Neuville, a slow puncture to his right rear cost him time in Saturday’s stage eight before going on to pick up tyre damage on the left rear in the next stage. Despite the problems, Neuville managed to climb ahead of Toyota’s Kalle Rovanpera to seventh overall.

Neuville was still frustrated though, telling the end of stage nine reporter: “The tyres are not on the level. If you see why we puncture, it’s just insane.

“Playing on that level with such a product is not possible. We get punished all the time for nothing, it’s not fun. It’s just luck that decides. We keep on going and make up some ground.”

Neuville elaborated further on the matter once he reached the service park: “Yesterday, one of the tyres wasn’t even punctured at the end. For a few seconds, it jumped around and let the air out and we put the pressure back in it last night and the tyre stayed full pressure overnight. 

“It is just a manufacturing, reliability issue and that is not how we should fight for the world championship and it is the same for the punctures. 

“This morning it wasn’t visible where the tyre was losing air. It was a really small hole and I have never seen this before, it is really insane. I have had more punctures now than I had all last year. They [Hankook] have big work to do.”

This is Hankook’s first year as the WRC’s control tyre supplier having taken over the contract that was previously held by Pirelli. The Korean tyre manufacturer has so far attracted limited criticism having produced a tyre that has been durable at the majority of events this year.

However, this weekend’s Acropolis, round seven of 2025, has arguably proved to be the tyre brand’s toughest test yet. Conditions for this season’s event, moved from September back to a traditional June date, have been much rougher than previous years, exacerbated by a prolonged period without rainfall to compact the roads.  

Hankook responds to Neuville’s concerns 

Responding to Neuville’s comments, Hankook’s spokesperson Steven Cho told Autosport: “We absolutely share his [Neuville’s] frustration. I think he has had more than his fair share of issues. 

Thierry Neuville, Martijn Wydaeghe, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1

Photo by: Vincent Thuillier / Hyundai Motorsport

“Coming to Greece we knew it would be the biggest challenge of the season, and from what we understand it is even harsher from a temperature and stage perspective than what we have seen in the past few years. We knew it would be a massive challenge and it has proved to be.  

“As this is our first year our focus was to come [to the WRC] with a conservative approach to make sure our tyres are as robust as possible, and I think we have seen up until now, generally, we have been ok. Of course we are not complacent about it and in motorsport things can always be better, and so we will continue to push but we knew this was going to be challenging.

“Moving forward we have developments that we are working on closely with the manufacturers as well as the FIA, and our plan is definitely not to stand still. But at the same time we need to find the appropriate time to bring those. We have multiple things in the process of development.

“Delaminations is something that we didn’t like to see for sure. There are different types of tyre problems, there is the basic impact or basic debeading from a lateral impact. The delaminations are a combination of the extreme heat we are seeing here and also the very abrasive surfaces that are compounding that problem. This is something we will look seriously at to avoid those.  

“As far as the issues we have seen here, that to a certain extent are a little bit unavoidable and to a certain extent expected, we will look at the data and see how we can come back stronger next year.”