Hyundai Motorsport’s “Flying Dutchman” will drive a fourth Hyundai i20 WRC car alongside Thierry Neuville, Dani Sordo and Hayden Paddon in the upcoming rallies in Portugal and Sardinia during the 2016 World Rally Championship.
The addition of Hyundai Motorsport’s test and development driver Kevin Abbring, from Holland, forms part of the team’s programme to expand its line-up to four cars in three rounds of this year’s WRC.
Abbring and his co-driver, Seb Marshall, will compete in the no. 10 car, the same previous generation Hyundai i20 WRC that his teammate Paddon used in Rallye Monte-Carlo earlier this year. Abbring and Marshall will race in Portugal and Sardinia, with one additional round of the championship still to be announced.
The duo made a big impression in the 2015 WRC season, taking part in five rounds alongside their test duties. One of their best performances was on the island Corsica when they were running in second place at one stage of the tarmac rally.
“I am very excited to have the first two of my three rallies this year in Portugal and in Sardinia,” said Abbring. “The two rallies are right after one another, so I should benefit from the momentum going from one event to the next. Obviously, when you are not in the car a lot, you have to prepare everything twice as well.
“We gained some really good WRC experience last year, so my objective for Portugal will be to get into the rhythm soon as possible then achieve a top-ten classification.
“We will be starting with the 2015 car, but that won’t matter. I have rallied in Portugal and Sardinia twice each, four or five years ago. It has been a while, so I am very excited to be back again. The gravel surface is less known to me, but this makes it more exciting.”
Abbring has spent the start of 2016 supporting the development of the New Generation i20 R5 Customer Project. He has also done valuable development for the New Generation i20 WRC, which has earned Hyundai two podium positions in the three opening rounds of the 2016 WRC.
“One of my future targets is to do all rallies in the Championship but, for the moment, I have a huge job developing two cars – the New Generation i20 WRC and the R5,” said Abbring.
Hyundai Motorsport’s team principal, Michel Nandan, also sees the benefits: “We always thought that it is a good move to have a test driver who also does competitive kilometres. We agreed with Kevin that this year he would do three rallies in the latest 2015 edition WRC car as part of a four-car programme alongside our three regular crews. At the beginning of the year Kevin was very busy with R5 testing, which was the priority, but now that we are a bit further into the season, we have more spare time to offer him some WRC events. He showed his potential in Corsica last year with an eye-catching performance, so we are looking forward to seeing what he can do this season.”