Hyundai Motorsport’s Thierry Neuville and co-driver Martijn Wydaeghe are targeting a strong and improved result this weekend as the second round of the 2022 FIA World Rally Championship takes place in Sweden.
Having previously won the Rally Sweden back in 2018, the snow and ice is not an unfamiliar territory for Neuville but for this year’s edition there’s a complete new itinerary as the rally moves to Umeå.
Neuville alongside the other crews from the team have run successful pre-event tests in Finland using similar roads, so for Sweden he do hope for improvements after the difficult first outting in the all-new Hyundai i20 N Rally1 hybrid machinery in Rallye Monte-Carlo.
Neuville knows for sure the rally will not be the easiest with a new car but believes the driving style will remain the same: “With the all-new itinerary, it’s very difficult to know what is waiting for us at Rally Sweden, but it will definitely be interesting. While we don’t have a lot of experience with the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 in these conditions – it is a proper full-snow rally –I think our driving style will be pretty similar to the previous cars we’ve competed with at Rally Sweden.“
“Rallying is always a bit more spectacular on snow with the studded tyres. Usually, the stages are quite fast, you have to lean into the snowbanks and drive sideways a bit more. You have to be slightly more brutal to get the studs to grip into the ground. Everybody has worked so hard over the last couple of months and we hope that we will see a good return for that effort next weekend.“
