Hyundai has brought updates to Croatia to improve its World Rally Championship car on tarmac, but will have to wait until Rally Portugal in May to debut its full development plan.
The Korean team started the 2026 season on the back foot with its i20 N struggling to deliver consistent speed, particularly in low grip conditions on asphalt.
As a result, rival Toyota scored back-to-back podium lockouts in Monte Carlo and Sweden. Last month, Hyundai managed to break Toyota’s podium stranglehold when Adrien Fourmaux finished second in Kenya.
Prior to Kenya, Hyundai’s sporting director Andrew Wheatley revealed that while the team spent its homologation jokers on improvements to the front end and gear ratios, there are a number of components it plans to upgrade that fall outside of the requirement to use homologation jokers.
The first wave of these updates, centred around the dampers, geometry and how the differentials interact on the car, have arrived in Croatia. The team could have brought even more improvements, but bad weather forced it to postpone a crucial test in the Canary Islands.
However, Wheatley is confident the changes made to the i20 N for Croatia have moved the team forward.
Adrien Fourmaux finished second in Kenya
Photo by: Hyundai
“We are about halfway through [the development plan],” Wheatley told Autosport. “Unfortunately, we lost a little bit of momentum when the test was cancelled at the last minute due to bad weather on the Canary Islands.
“We lost two days of running, and we have had to come back to Spain a week later [for a test], which threw us a little bit. We are a little bit compromised here [in Croatia], but we are moving in the right direction. But it won’t be until Portugal now before we have everything in place. It is moving in the right direction.
“If the schedule had gone as planned, we would be one step further down the line. It is nothing dramatic, it is just basically trying to open that set up window. The car is quick, but when it knows where it is going.
“The second half of the year is traditionally stronger for our car anyway, but we just want to keep ourselves in a position to be fighting.”
Hyundai’s full-time drivers Fourmaux and 2024 world champion Thierry Neuville believe the changes helped the team make some “small steps” forward, with a shot at a podium a realistic target in Croatia.
“I think we agree that we made some small steps with some new kinematics,” Neuville, who was third fastest in Thursday’s shakedown, told Autosport.
“It doesn’t 100% solve the balance problem of the car. But we have something we can build on together with a reasonable opening time in the shakedown this morning. When the fire starts, we need to now be able to put the fuel on it to keep it burning.
“Maybe a third place is possible. Friday will be a challenging day with road position, so I think we will lose a lot of time in stage two and three, on one and four, it will be OK.”
Adrien Fourmaux, Alexandre Coria, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1
Photo by: Hyundai
Fourmaux added: “We’ve been very busy [with testing] but at least it shows that we don’t give up. We still push on it, and I’m pleased with the pace we’ve done.
“The car feels better, so let’s see. To be fair, we will know if it’s really better tomorrow. But it’s more about feeling, more than really pure performance. But on a rally if you have a feeling, you can also be very fast, even if you don’t have the faster car. So let’s see.
“I think we can be on the podium. That would be a good result. If we can be on the podium at each tarmac event, then I can have a big push on gravel and catch up.”
Private 2017 WRC car test provides answers for Neuville
Outside of team testing, Neuville conducted his own private two-day test driving his own 2017 spec Hyundai i20 Coupe on asphalt roads in Belgium last month, to further understand where the struggles lie with his current i20 N Rally1 car.
The Belgian’s frustrations and struggles for confidence driving this year’s Hyundai have been clear. At Rally Sweden in February, he admitted it was “the hardest time of my career so far”.
Neuville laid a fair amount of the blame for his lack of pace, which includes his struggles during last year’s dismal title defence, on the new Hankook tyres introduced in 2025. However, he now believes that the tyre is not the primary reason after a revealing test last month using the rubber on his 2017 car.
“I actually have done two days of testing with my old car to compare some tyres,” he said. “The feedback was actually very positive on the Hankook itself as well. So, it somehow confirms as well my feelings that the tyre is actually not that bad. We put a lot of fault on the tyre but I think we need to work much more on the [current] car.
“We tested on two different roads and the outcome was always the same. So, the tyre is not so bad.”
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– The Autosport.com Team
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