As the 2025 That should bring several, important, changes to the rules of the World Rally Championship, Hyundai asksthrough the voice of its WRC Program Manager, Christian Loriaux, to review the regulation relating to testing: currently, to try to contain costs, every Builder can perform, at most, 21 days of testing, throughout the year, with your Rally1 outside of designated permanent test sites.
These permanent locationswhich can contain a maximum of 12 kilometers of test road, must not be located near the team factory. Hyundai Motorsportdespite being based in Germany, has chosen the roads of Finlandnot far from those of its rival Toyotawhich is based in the Scandinavian country, as a location for the tests while M-Sport try out his Pumas in the Greystoke Forest close to its headquarters in Cumbria. Since the Test roads are only suitable for a handful of rallies on the calendar and testing outside these areas is limited, teams often entered their drivers in national racesin order to accumulate useful kilometers in view of a Championship race.
E in 2024 we have thus seen Toyota deploy Elfyn Evans and Kalle Rovanperä at the start ofArctic Rallybefore the Swedish Rally, ed Evans all’HYAcenter Rally before the Rally Finland.
Hyundai spent even more, by signing up Andreas Mikkelsen al Dawn rally before Croatia, Dani Sordo al Terras d’Aboboreira Rally in preparation for Portugal, Ott Tänak al Rally Estonia ed Esapekka Lappi al Lithuania Rally with a view to Latvia, Thierry Neuville al Granada City Rallyin Spain, and atHerbst Rally in Austria.
Also, really this weekendis Neuville That Mikkelsen they will run to the Rallye La Nucia in Spain to prepare for Rally Japan.
M-Sportinstead, it limited itself to participation of Adrien Fourmaux in Rallylegend before the Central European Rally.
In most cases, only one Rally1 car was competing, “competing” with the local drivers in the Rally2s and, in some cases, the “top drivers” withdrew before the finish, ensuring the victory of a local crew, certainly more deserving.
Ora Loriaux argues that relying so heavily on the combination of a permanent test site and participation in national competitions is not cost-effective:
” For me, what doesn’t make sense is the rule of tests with a permanent base because it has forced manufacturers to build their own test tracks, on asphalt and gravel, and this already defeats the objective of saving. So I think the testing regulations should be revised to really save money and not have to travel to participate in national competitions. Travel for a week to compete in 100 km of special stages. This is a waste of money”
L’idea it would be that of a more limited use of permanent sites, compensated by an increase in test days allowedwith teams who would be less likely to participate in national events seeking test kilometres, which is important for the WRC events they will have to participate in.
All this complicates the debate about next seasonwith the possibility that the hybrid could be eliminated from Rally1, although Loriaux believes no extra testing would be necessary if this decision were to be confirmed:
“I don’t think we need to do further testing without hybrid. In a way everything should be easier without hybrid. For sure, the car is less complicated and the adjustments are simpler, so I would say we don’t need more days of testing if the hybrid is eliminated”
Cover photo: Hyundai Motorsport
