Abiteboul: The marketing aspect is important for Hyundai in racing

We recently called out the Hyundai World Rally Team in connection with the death of its racer Craig Breen during testing, but life goes on and this weekend they took to the start of the next leg of the World Championship – the Croatian Rally Croatia.

The Korean car giant’s factory team has been led by Cyril Abiteboul since January, and we quoted him at the beginning of the year when he said Hyundai has no specific plans regarding Formula 1. But that doesn’t mean the concern has no interest at all in F1, and now Abitebul has somewhat clarified his employers’ position on the matter.

“Hyundai Motor Group is actively looking at different programs,” he said in an interview with RacingNews365. “We have now been in the world rally for 10 years and the baseline scenario is that we stay in the WRC, because Hyundai already has a rich legacy in this championship today. It makes sense to stick with this sport in the future. So far, our main goal is to follow the further development of the WRC.

But it cannot be ruled out that at some point we will have to think about alternatives and then we will look at the championships, in which the electrical component will be key.

Another very important aspect is that participation in competitions contributes to the promotion of our products, including models of the N sports line. In general, such product promotion is not one of the strengths of Formula 1, so we will focus on categories that focus on electrical technologies and will contribute to the realization of our marketing objectives.

This is exactly what we want from motorsport. And we can look at any platform that can help fulfill them.”