Sporting director Andrew Wheatley explains why the team feels the new car is definitely stronger
Photography by Hyundai
Words by Alasdair Lindsay, Head of Digital Strategy
Andrew Wheatley is now certain that Hyundai’s evolution of its i20 N Rally1, launched at this year’s Rally Sweden, is a distinct step forward after Adrien Fourmaux’s strong run on Rally Japan and Ott Tänak’s struggles with the older-spec machine.
Hyundai had homologated a raft of upgrades in one batch, having agreed a deal with the other manufacturer teams to have access to all its jokers for the remainder of the Rally1 rules cycle in one go at the beginning of 2025.
It used the majority of those jokers to implement changes to the suspension, which went from being angled to near-vertical in their layout, bringing it in-line with the Toyota GR Yaris and Ford Puma. Transmission parts were also updated.
Rally Islas Canarias raised the question of whether the new car was a step forward at all, with all three Hyundais well off Toyota’s pace. But after Fourmaux’s strong showing, competing near the front of the field in Japan before a Sunday crash led to retirement, Hyundai’s WRC sporting director Andrew Wheatley now feels the ‘Evo’ car is a clear step above its predecessor, which Tänak used in Central Europe and Japan.
“This is effectively the third [asphalt] rally for that car,” Wheatley told DirtFish. “At every stage, we’re finding more and more and more data.
Wheatley feels confident Hyundai's updated car is a step forward - even on Tarmac
“We’ve had the crossover now between the [Monte-spec] and the Evo. We know more about the Evo now. We know that the Evo is a better car, because on the gravel rallies that were a problem in the past the Evo is faster, no question.
“The reason Ott took the older car for Central Europe was because we didn’t have the data. And coming out of Canaries, which was a disappointing rally, we couldn’t say to him: this is the fix.
“Before this rally, I genuinely thought it was the right move for [Ott],” Wheatley added. “He knows the car and these conditions [in Japan]. He didn’t know the tire as well as we could but I genuinely thought it was the right move for him because it released a bit of pressure and he could do what he wanted to do.
“I think what we saw on Friday was that actually the Evo is probably a step more now, and they have done the work, and Adrien was able to be competitive without putting his neck completely on the line. And then on Saturday morning, Adrien was competitive but he was on the door handles.”
Though Wheatley is convinced the car has peak performance, how to attain it consistently remains a question mark.
Fourmaux complained at times of snap oversteer – something Wheatley acknowledged needed continued refinement. And though Fourmaux crashed out on the final section of Sunday’s opening stage, the previous few kilometers had given reason for optimism.
“If you analyze all of the comments from all of the drivers, there is nobody saying that car is perfect on every corner,” he said. “There are people saying we’re much closer to the win though.
“The setup that they put on Sunday morning was full wet and we haven’t run the car in full wet [setup] before. It was a bit of a… we think this is going to be somewhere [in the ballpark]. But [Adrien] said, ‘Actually, it did what I wanted it to do, braked when I braked, turned when it turned; OK, I’m waiting for the apex of the corner before applying the throttle’, but in the three quarters of the stage that he did, by the second half of the stage he was starting to think: ‘Actually, yes, I can lean on this’.
“If you look at the splits, he was starting to come back again. He said he was actually surprised that we weren’t so far away. There’s a bit we can do but, actually, Adrien himself said that we can go to Monte Carlo knowing that we can be in the fight.”
Tänak will join team-mates Fourmaux and Thierry Neuville in using the Evo version of the car at next week’s Rally Saudi Arabia.
Words:Alasdair Lindsay
Tags: Andrew Wheatley, Hyundai, Rally Japan, Rally Japan 2025, WRC, WRC 2025
Publish Date November 19, 2025 DirtFish
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