Hyundai Motorsport has resumed operations at its Alzenau factory in Germany as the company responds to ever-evolving schedule changes caused by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
50% of its workforce still working from home but everyone has been keeping busy over the last few months and have now started to adapt to revised schedules in the FIA World Rally Championship and World Touring Car Cup, as well as ramping up its Customer Racing activities.
Both the WRC and WTCR series will not resume until September at the earliest but Hyundai want to resume racing as soon as possible.
Hyundai have said they will compete in a number of events during the summer, including Rally di Roma Capitale (July 24-26), Rally di Alba (July 31-August 2) and Rally DirtFish in Estonia (August 7-9).
The Rome-based event will see two Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC cars in action with Dani Sordo and Customer Racing Junior Driver Pierre-Louis Loubet in the driving seat. In addition, there will be numerous customer entries with the Hyundai i20 R5, starting with Irishman Craig Breen and Customer Racing Junior Driver Callum Devine.
The Alba Rally will see two factory-entered i20 Coupe WRC with Loubet in a customer WRC car. There will also be two i20 R5 cars in the event, one apiece for Breen and Jari Huttunen.
Thierry Neuville and Ott Tanak have already confirmed their participation in Estonia’s DirtFish Rally.
Team Principal Andrea Adamo said: “The pandemic remains critical in some areas of the world, and we are certainly not pressing ahead blindly. However, the situation in Europe has allowed us to resume some of our operations at Hyundai Motorsport with safety precautions and social distancing in place.
“We are reacting as best we can to an always evolving schedule. The recent cancellations of WRC in Finland and New Zealand mean we have an extended period of no championship action, so we’ve looked at how we might be able to keep active.
“We want to give our drivers and co-drivers the opportunity to compete and to put a smile back on fans’ faces. We are monitoring the circumstances closely but hope we can field our i20 Coupe WRC and i20 R5 in a handful of events this summer.
“This has been a challenging time for a lot of people, but there is some light at the end of the tunnel, so we must continue to take cautious steps back to our normal routines.”
