While Volkswagen is already enjoying its
return to the World Rally Championship
, Hyundai is concentrating on developing its motorsport team on the outskirts of Frankfurt ahead of its entry to WRC next year. The new premises provides a base for the factory WRC entry to be developed and run by an ever growing team of personnel picked from across the motorsport spectrum. The new year saw the appointment of team principal Michel Nandan, who has been overseeing the final phases at the HQ in Alzenau and getting his team in place. Working alongside Nandan is Bertrand Vallat in engineering, the chief designer already with five months under his belt on the i20 project.
Third car and second team for VW
The recruitment drive has continued with Stephane Girad joining the team as engine manager. Alain Penasse joins later this month as the overall team boss taking care of the day to day operations of the team. Final addition - for now - is Ernest Kopp whose background in F1, rallying and Le Mans will help as he comes to recruit the rest of the workshop team.
Meanwhile Volkswagen has confirmed it will be entering another Polo R WRC into the Rally of Portugal to bolster its title contention. The additional pairing of Andreas Mikkelsen (double IRC champion) and Mikko Markkula will operate as a separate team under the banner Motorsport II in order that they get a full allocation of test days rather than sharing those of Latvala/Anttila and Ogier/Ingrassia.
With this additional effort from VW will Citroen increase the pressure on Loeb to mount a full assault on the title or will he continue with his initial plan to only compete in selected rounds? And can Ogier maintain this early momentum for VW before Hyundai joins the party? We'll find out more after the Portugal round, which starts today.