Dani Sordo will not be taking part in the 2017 FIA World Rally Championship season finale after Hyundai Motorsport announced they have no way of getting the fourth car that they are running at Wales Rally GB to Australia in time.
With Andreas Mikkelsen joining the team, the Norwegian has caused a logistics nightmare for the team, and while they can run a fourth car for Wales Rally GB they can’t do the same in Australia.
This left the team with a dilemma of who would be dropped from the line-up, “The complexity of logistics for Rally Australia meant that we were not able to run a four-car entry, although that would have been the ideal solution.” said Team Principal Michel Nandan.
“We had to make the decision based on which combination of crews we felt would give us the strongest all-round chance on the Australian gravel.”
The team settled with the line up of Thierry Neuville and Nicolas Gilsoul, Andreas Mikkelsen and Anders Jæger, along with the Anglo-Kiwi crew of Hayden Paddon and co-driver Seb Marshall.
“Thierry scored our first Australian podium last year, an event that was won by Andreas and Hayden has made continuous improvements year-on-year in this rally. We want to finish the season in the most competitive way possible, to lay ourselves strong foundations for next year – that’s our aim.”
