Factory motorsport bosses rarely say out loud what Demaison just said.
In an interview with Racecar Engineering, picked up Monday, the Frenchman walked through where Hyundai’s i20 N Rally2 has been losing time, and did so without cushioning.
“In previous years, the car was not particularly competitive in WRC2. It was neither reliable enough nor fast enough,” he told Racecar Engineering.
The car in question is the customer version that Hyundai sells to WRC2 teams and privateers, not the top-tier i20 N Rally1 driven by Thierry Neuville. Its roots show, Demaison explained: the Rally2’s gearbox was lifted from a standard road-car design that worked well on asphalt but could not cope with the roughest events on the calendar.
Read also: Manchester United fans make unusual demand after Javier Hernandez’s comments
A gearbox taken from a road car
Suspension travel was the second symptom of the same problem. Because the gearbox dictated where the driveshafts exited the case, there was not enough room for the wheels to move.
“Wheel travel was a problem with this car. It was not at the same level as other Rally2 cars,” Demaison said.
Changing the transmission, he told the magazine, was the only way to reposition the driveshaft outputs and open up the suspension travel the car was missing.
Hyundai switched to a five-speed Sadev gearbox, reworked the alternator and power-steering package, and spent 16 days testing to refocus the car on gravel. The aim, Demaison said, is to give customer teams a car that can be competitive on a wider slice of the calendar.
Read also: First Katie Zacharia then Dana White, who is up next, Trump?
It is a reversal of Hyundai’s recent customer strategy. Two seasons ago, customer racing manager Benoit Nogier told DirtFish the team was leaning the other way, saying the “travel on gravel is a big disadvantage for us” and that the car had a better hand to play on tarmac.
Why Rally2 is the pressure point
The timing matters. The FIA’s 2027 WRC regulations lean heavily on Rally2 architecture, meaning the customer car becomes the base on which any future top-flight Hyundai is built.
Demaison has made clear Hyundai is not sold on those rules. He told DirtFish in April 2025 that a pure combustion car “is not really what a manufacturer like Hyundai is ready to promote through rally,” and that it was “difficult to ask Korean bosses to invest a lot of money in a championship where you can’t promote anything.”
Earlier this year, speaking to Autosport around Rally de Portugal, he said a Rally2 entry “is an option” for the WRC2 championship under new rules, “but we don’t see it really as an option to fight with WRC27 cars.”
Read also: Packers dismantle Patriots as New England’s post-Brady era hits another low
A season Toyota ran away with
The admission closes a year in which Hyundai’s top-level effort went backwards. Toyota Gazoo Racing wrapped up a sixth straight manufacturers’ title at Rally Chile on 26 September, matching a Lancia record that had stood since 1992, according to the team’s own release. Hyundai’s sole win of the year came in Portugal, with Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe.
Neuville told DirtFish in September 2025 that staff moves to Hyundai’s new Genesis Magma Racing WEC hypercar had hollowed the rally side out: “you cannot fight against Toyota when the engagement is not the same as it has been before.”
In the same piece, Demaison did not push back, acknowledging that colleagues had moved to the hypercar project or were splitting their time between both.
The heavily revised i20 N Rally2 is due to be homologated before the end of this year, ahead of a planned debut next season.
Read also: ‘Everything just stopped’: Harry Kane opens up on unforgettable Ballon d’Or moment
Read also: Four months after the World Cup, Vozinha is a champion in Chile
