MOTORSPORT: Hyundai hell-bent on rally success

Fed up with being the bridesmaid in the World Rally Championship, Hyundai has fired its team boss just three weeks before the start of the new season.

Replacing Michel Nandan is Italian Andrea Adamo, already the Korean manufacturer’s customer racing manager running its i20 R5 rally and i30 N TCR touring car programs, which he will continue to oversee.

This year’s WRC begins with the Monte Carlo Rally on January 24-27 on the home ground of the ousted Monaco-born-and-based Nandan, who had headed Hyundai’s German-headquartered rally outfit since 2013 – the year before its re-entry into the championship with its i20 Coupe.

The make has had 10 wins in that time but has been runner-up in the manufacturers’ championship the past three years, while its top driver, Belgian Thierry Neuville, has finished second in the drivers’ championship in each of those seasons behind Frenchman Sebastien Ogier. Toyota came over the top of the Korean brand last season to take the manufacturers’ crown in just its second year back in the WRC.

Hyundai has hired the world’s greatest rally driver, Sebastien Loeb, winner of nine straight world titles and a record 79 WRC rounds but not a full-time participant since 2012, for six events in its urgent quest for glory, starting at ‘The Monte’.

Ford team M-Sport also has had some management change recently, with Rich Millener taking over from Malcolm Wilson as team principal, allowing Wilson to concentrate on commercial aspects.

Ogier, with six world titles and 44 WRC event victories under his belt, has been testing Citroen’s C3 and recommending changes to the model that has won just three events against Hyundai, Toyota’s Yaris and Ford’s Fiesta in the past two seasons.

Ogier’s return to the French make comes after seven years away, initially in a Skoda before his championship successes in Volkswagen Polos and Ford Fiestas.

There has been no word on the futures of the dislodged Citroen drivers, Irishman Craig Breen and Norwegian Mads Ostberg. Nor on New Zealander Hayden Paddon, who lost his part-time drive with Hyundai to make way for Loeb despite having been that team’s second-best performer – by points scored per event – last season, including second place at Rally Australia just six weeks ago.

Sebastien Loeb is scheduled to have just two days of testing in his Hyundai WRC mount before the Monte Carlo Rally because he’s off in South America about to make his fourth attempt to win the Dakar Rally.

The Dakar, being run exclusively in Peru this year, starts on Sunday night, Australian time, and ends on January 17, just a week before the WRC opener.

Loeb will be in a privateer two-wheel-drive Peugeot 3008 DKR run by PH-Sport following the French manufacturer’s closure of its factory team after its triumphs of the past three years.

The other three Peugeot drivers – ‘Monsieur Dakar’ Stephane Peterhansel (victor seven times in cars and six times on bikes), Carlos Sainz and Cyril Depres – have joined Sven Quandt’s X-Raid MINI team.

That trio will be in two-wheel-drive buggies, about which two-time and defending champion Sainz has reliability concerns, while his fellow Spaniard Nani Roma will be in the more traditional and consistent MINI All4.

It is the 41st Dakar and may be the last in South America after a decade there following the cancellation of the 2008 event because of security concerns in Mauritania. Most of the routes in recent years have been through Argentina and Chile, but those countries have dropped out this year and there have been talks about going back to Europe and Africa, where the rally traditionally ended in Dakar, the capital of Senegal.

The Peruvian event starts and finishes in the capital, Lima, but 70 per cent of the 5,000-kilometre course will be over sand dunes, with Sainz estimating a 300km stage “will take us around five hours, with a trap every minute and huge stress”.

Although there will be 10 days of competition rather than the usual 14, Sainz says “the stress this year is going to be higher – and the amount of accidents too”.

“If you have a 20-minute advantage on the final day and there’s dunes ahead you can’t be relaxed,” he said.

Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah’s speciality in sand dunes gives him a big chance of a third Dakar win – and a first for Toyota with its Hilux.

Australians Steve Riley and Trev Hanks are competing in a Holden ute.

Riley, who built the ute on his dairy farm in Victoria’s Gippsland, is a three-time winner of the Australian Safari and has finished both his previous Dakars – as co-driver to

Queenslander Geoff Olholm in 2011 and West Australian Adrian Di Lallo in 2013.
Riley’s dream of taking a Holden ute on the event dates back to chats he had with Peter Brock before the legendary touring car and round-Australia driver’s death in the 2006 Targa West.

Three Aussies are riding motorcycles in this year’s Dakar – three-time podium finisher and 2016 victor Toby Price, Queenslander Rod Faggotter and Victorian Ben Young.