The team principal of Hyundai Motorsport, Andrea Adamo, reveals that the announcement for the complete driver-up for next year will be done at the end of Rally Finland which will be held on 1-3 October.
Thierry Neuville and Ott Tanak are so far announced by Hyundai as both of them have signed a multi-year contract and it was announced earlier this season.
Dani Sordo is interested in having a part-time programme as he had said some years ago and he has been an Hyundai driver since 2014, but he is linked to join Toyota next year as Sebastien Ogier will compete in a selected number of races.
Moreover, it is rumoured that Craig Breen will join M-Sport Ford next year with a multi-year contract and the announcement of that move will be done soon.
Oliver Solberg is the most potential option for Hyundai in 2022 as Adamo has faith in him and in fact the last one offered him three outings with the Rally1 car of the team so far in comparison with Jari Huttunen who is the teammate of Solberg in WRC2 category and he has not been given the oppurtunity to debut in WRC this year.
"We have the two top drivers [Neuville and Tänak] who luckily are there and luckily are working hard and luckily are covering our gaps, and for which I think that I have not enough capability to say thank you", Adamo said.
"I think that after Finland we will decide what to do [with the other car] because also in this I have many thoughts and many doubts".
Finally, Adamo is not sure if he will decide to have two drivers for sharing the third car of Hyundai: "I’m not sure of the real move to do because from what I understood, it’s why I’m taking a bit more time, next year’s car will be a different beast from the current ones honestly.
"And I have to say, quite more complicated to use with strategies with the way to manage the hybrid and so and so, so I don’t know if sometimes the lower road position in the first leg will be an advantage so big in respect to the knowledge of the car.
"You have potentially more grip or whatever but you are not used to using the car or you don’t know all the tricks or the car or really you are not so good to manage the car, you lose the opportunity to capitalize.
"And I think also that for some reason we have to investigate, also this year the road position looks like it’s not been so useful".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: Hyundai
Ott Tanak and Thierry Neuville full time and Oliver Solberg / Daniel Sordo sharing the third car. Breen goes to M-Sport.
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