A decision surrounding Hyundai’s future in the World Rally Championship beyond 2025 is yet to be made, insists team principal Cyril Abiteboul.
Confirmation that lead driver Thierry Neuville has signed a new one-year contract for 2025 has fuelled speculation that the Korean brand is potentially heading for an exit from its works WRC programme in 2026.
Hyundai is understood to be gearing up for a move into the World Endurance Championship for 2026 which has cast doubt over its long-term future in the WRC. This has prompted discussion that the brand could leave the WRC completely or remain involved in the category with its rally operation outsourced to a private team for the final year of the current Rally1 rule set.
Abiteboul has so far avoided committing Hyundai to a factory WRC programme in 2026 when questioned by Motorsport.com. The former Renault Formula 1 boss has outlined that Neuville’s contract news doesn’t necessarily mean it is a one-year deal and that a decision on the car maker’s WRC future is yet to be finalised.
Neuville also eluded to the fact that his new deal could be longer than 2025 but also stated that the future of the Hyundai WRC team beyond 2025 is yet to be finalised.
“2025 is what we can confirm now. It doesn’t mean that it’s not a part of a longer-term contract [for Thierry], but 2025 is what we can write about,” Abiteboul told Motorsport.com.
Thierry Neuville, Martijn Wydaeghe, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1
Photo by: Romain Thuillier / Hyundai Motorsport
“The reality, first, is it is a longer-term contract with Thierry that has an option mechanism and the reality is that we also need to understand where we are going.
“A few months ago we [the WRC] were going for no hybrid Rally1 minus, Rally2 plus and now we don’t really know a number of things for next year. We talk about next year introducing cost-cutting measures about change to some of the sporting regulations to some of the weekend format is any of that coming?
“Right now we are in the sport and committed to winning the sport and we are exploiting the [homologation] joker capability in the best possible way [to improve the i20 N Rally1 car for 2025] and if we do that frankly we would not want to do that for one year.
“Our goal is to be here for many years and we have a contract with Thierry that caters to that but what we can confirm right here, right now is this partnership being extended between Hyundai and Thierry for 2025.
He added: “The decision [surrounding Hyundai’s WRC future in 2026] is not made and we will talk about 2026 in due time. It is not the time now, now is the time to focus on 2024 and 2025, and we need a number of things for our plans to be formalised for 2026.”
There have been suggestions that Hyundai would not want to continue running the i20 N in 2026 given the road car has been discontinued. Abiteboul says this would only be factor for the manufacturer in 2027 when the WRC proposes its new Rally1 regulations.
“It will become a factor for 2027 we know the i20 N is already discontinued so we could have stopped at the end of this year,” he added.
“For 2027, for sure we need to know first the direction of the sport and also what that means for our own internal strategy in terms of product.
“It is too early to talk about this thing, but it is going in the right direction in relation to that. I don’t have a mandate to talk about the product of Hyundai but that is also one of the reasons why we cannot make a statement about the future because we need to be clear about our own product, but it is not a factor for 2026.”
