Hyundai Motorsport
 |
|
| Full name | Hyundai Shell World Rally Team |
|---|---|
| Base |
 Alzenau, Germany
|
| Team principal(s) | Michel Nandan |
| Technical director | Alain Penasse |
| Drivers |
 Thierry Neuville, Dani Sordo, Hayden Paddon, Kevin Abbring
|
| Co-drivers |
Nicolas Gilsoul, Marc Martí, John Kennard, Sebastian Marshall
|
| Chassis | Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC |
| Tyres | Michelin |
| World Rally Championship career | |
| Debut | 2000 |
| Constructors' Championships | 0 |
| Drivers' Championships | 0 |
| Rally wins | 4 |
Hyundai Motorsport began when Hyundai competed in the F2 class of the World Rally Championship in 1998 and 1999. It was run by British company Motor Sports Development (MSD), with David Whitehead as team principal. In September 1999, Hyundai unveiled the Accent WRC, a World Rally Car based on the Hyundai Accent. The Hyundai World Rally Team debuted the car at the 2000 Swedish Rally and achieved their first top-ten result at that year's Rally Argentina, when Alister McRae and Kenneth Eriksson finished seventh and eighth, respectively. Eriksson later drove the car to fifth place in New Zealand and fourth in Australia. In 2001, Hyundai debuted a new evolution of the Accent WRC, which was intended to improve reliability, but the performance of the car was still not good enough to challenge the four big teams (Ford World Rally Team, Mitsubishi, Peugeot and Subaru). However, at the season-ending Rally GB, the team achieved their best result with McRae finishing fourth and Eriksson sixth.
For the 2002 season, Hyundai hired the four-time world champion Juha Kankkunen, along with Freddy Loix and Armin Schwarz. Kankkunen's fifth place in New Zealand was the team's best result, but they managed to edge out Škoda and Mitsubishi by one point in the battle for fourth place in the manufacturers' world championship. In September 2003, after a season hampered by budget constraints, Hyundai announced their withdrawal from the WRC ending the partnership with MSD, and planned to return in 2006 which didn't happen.
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