Ott Tanak felt Hyundai was ‘clearly unprepared’ for the demands of Rally Islas Canarias after suffering a crushing defeat to World Rally Championship rivals Toyota.
Hyundai admitted that it underestimated the difficulty of the first pure asphalt event of the 2025 WRC season as it was unable to take the fight to a dominant Toyota that recorded an impressive 1-2-3-4 result.
The Korean marque headed to the Canary Islands feeling reasonably confident after Thierry Neuville showed strong pace on Spanish tarmac roads at Rally Sierra Morena. However, in the Canary Islands the team struggled with the set-up and handling across its three cars and couldn’t extract the most from Hankook hard compound tyres.
The differentials selected pre-event appeared to be a key part of the problem and something the team could not reverse as the components are sealed. But the team admitted that the rally had highlighted some fundamental issues with its upgraded i20 N Rally1 car. As a result, Saturday and Sunday’s stages turned into a glorified test session designed to learn more about its car for future events.
Adrien Fourmaux, who selected a different differential compared to team-mates Neuville and Tanak, emerged as the fastest Hyundai, finishing fifth some 2m31.0s adrift of runaway winner Kalle Rovanpera.
Hyundai has one homologation joker up its sleeve to deploy should it uncover significant changes to its i20 N Rally1 are required to resolve the issues. Tanak believes the root cause of the lack of pace is not a straightforward fix.
“Clearly we were not well prepared for this rally, and it was a kind of rally which shows it well, as we can see the pace was coming from the other manufacturer,” Tanak told Motorsport.com after finishing sixth, 3m11.4s adrift.
Ott Tänak, Martin Järveoja, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
“It was a pure-performance event and we were just not ready for this one, and the other team was very strong and well prepared, so that is where the big difference came from.
“Definitely big lessons will be taken but definitely it is not so clear what we need to do and be on the pace of Toyota. I also think that it is not so straightforward to change it.”
While frustrated by being unable to fight Toyota, Fourmaux believes Hyundai will resolve its problems and that last weekend’s woes were rally-specific, meaning they shouldn’t be an issue when asphalt returns to the WRC at the Central European Rally in October.
“I’m really frustrated because we were unable to fight but we found some interesting things on the car that we can improve, things that we couldn’t really do on the rally, it is more for the future,” Fourmaux told Motorsport.com.
“Personally I am happy to be the fastest of the three as it was a fight within the team at the end and I think it was the only fight during the whole weekend. There are some positives because at the end we won the ‘Hyundai Cup’.
“I’m confident Hyundai is not a team that doesn’t react when something [goes wrong], so we will work harder and get better, faster and stronger.
“Canary Islands is only one rally in season, and as long as there are not many more smooth, dry tarmac events we should be fine. The rest are ok, it should be fine.”
In this article
Tom Howard
WRC
Ott Tanak
Adrien Fourmaux
Hyundai Motorsport
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