Hyundai Motorsport has completed Rally Finland, the ninth round of the 2017 FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) which was concluded on Sunday in Jyväskylä, with Thierry Neuville finishing highest of the team’s three crews in sixth position in his Hyundai i20 Coupé WRC.
Taking eight points for his overall sixth place, Neuville added three more points for finishing third in the Power Stage. They were vital points for the Belgian which moved him to the lead of the Drivers’ Championship on a total of 160, the same as Sébastien Ogier. However, Neuville’s three wins this year put him ahead of the Frenchman on the leaderboard.
Dani Sordo claimed ninth position for Hyundai Motorsport on Sunday, with Hayden Paddon resuming a frustrating event under Rally 2 conditions on Sunday morning with a handful of top-six stage times.
Sunday’s itinerary covered a repeat loop of the short 6,80km Lempää and 10,12km Oittila stages over a total distance of just 33,84km. Despite the brevity of the stages, there was no holding back with close battles at the front and important Power Stage points up for grabs.
After Rally Finland there are 34 points separating Hyundai Motorsport from the Manufacturers’ Championship leaders M- Sport, with four rounds of the season left to contest.
It has been an uncharacteristically low-key weekend for the Hyundai Motorsport team, who just three weeks ago, in Poland, registered its best-combined performance in the WRC. With a solitary stage win in Friday’s closing Harju test, the three Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team crews have struggled to find pace, rhythm or confidence on Finland’s notoriously high-speed gravel roads with its many “yumps”.