Hyundai Motorsport’s expectations for Rally Italia Sardegna

Sunday, June 7

07/06/2015 - After mixed successes at the new-look Rally de Portugal held in late May, the Hyundai Motorsport team heads to the Mediterranean island of Sardinia for round six of the 2015 FIA World Rally Championship.Neuville, Sordo and Hayden Paddon, who made his debut last year on the i20 Wrc on Sardinia´s gravel, will be at the wheel of the three works cars of the Korean team that completed the tests for Rally Italia Sardegna last April in Portugal.

"We have made a lot of preparation for this event and our team is coming in with a lot of motivation from Portugal, where both Dani and Hayden completed the rally in the top eight." - stated team Manager Michel Nandan. "We learned a lot last year in Sardinia and claimed our first stage 1-2 so we hope to show that we have improved in that time."

Thierry Neuville will try and improve his result of 2014 when he ended 16th absolute. "I think we had a pretty good start to the race last year." - said the Belgian driver -- "We had some trouble with the car, while we were leading the rally actually. That was quite a disappointment but we had benefited from a good positioning that brought us into the lead. It is going to be an interesting one this year again, for sure. The very slippery and sandy gravel make road cleaning quite important there as well."

Dani Sordo will be at his first time competing at Rally Italia Sardegna under the Hyundai Motorsport flag. "Sardinia is a special rally and a very difficult one, because it is very slippery and narrow with a lot of stones along the sides of the roads. It is normally very hot as well, and quite unique because of the sheer amount of change that goes into the road between the first and second passes, with the grip levels changing a lot. The first pass here is much more slippery than the second one, which is also much more aggressive".