The Korean marque announced on the eve of this weekend’s season finale in Japan that Esapekka Lappi will conduct a part-time programme, driving the team’s third factory i20N entry.
Lappi had been expected to scale back from a full-time to a partial programme after Hyundai signed Ott Tanak from M-Sport to join Thierry Neuville for 2024.
But Hyundai is yet to announce the full driver line-up for the third car.
Abiteboul confirmed to Autosport that Lappi’s 2024 schedule is yet to be firmed up, but he did reveal that Sweden would be the Finn’s first outing.
“It is not defined,” he said. “It is a sensible programme [for Esapekka] so it is not like one or two rallies, but it will be shared with other drivers.
“It is more than 50% of rallies. The first one will be Sweden, that we can confirm already.”
When asked about the team’s plans for the third car outside of Lappi, Abiteboul said the Finn could share the car with “maybe two drivers”.
Hyundai appears to have plenty of options to join Lappi with Teemu Suninen, Dani Sordo and Emil Lindholm already on the team’s books.
Source: Autosport