After undergoing development during the off-season, Hyundai has made great strides with its i20N this season but is still behind championship’s pacesetting Toyota GR Yaris on both reliability and performance.
With one round of the season remaining, Hyundai has scored 14 podiums, the same as it had amassed at this point last season, albeit with one less victory, and has been unable to halt Toyota from sealing a third consecutive constructors’ title.
After signing the experienced Francois-Xavier Demaison as technical director, Hyundai is pushing forward on its development strategy with its i20N. The next step of that process is to utilise the October joker development window, but the fruits of that won’t be felt until next year.
Reliability remains a concern for the team, and was best illustrated by the propshaft failures it suffered at Safari Rally Kenya in June. Ensuring the i20N improves in the reliability department is the main focus for this development joker, ahead of a push to upscale the car’s performance.
Team principal Cyril Abiteboul has confirmed to Autosport/Motorsport.com that the team won’t rush to debut any reliability upgrades at the final event in Japan later this month.
“We have done what we need to do. We still have the homologation to pass which is a bit later so we know very well what we want to do and we have a good idea of what we want to do in 2024,” Abiteboul said.
Source: Autosport