Atkinson and Hanninen sampled the i20 WRC in Spain and we love it

Despite the fact that it’s quite difficult to say what kind of pace the i20 WRC has, because hey I am not an engineer working for the team nor do I have access to team’s secret data archives, it’s obvious they (the team) are working hard. Nobody really knows if Hyundai will be able to challenge the established teams next year, or if they’ll spend the next 12 months working and preparing for the proper assault in 2015. Something tells me that we might see plenty of pace and competitiveness already next year.

Recently, Hyundai ordered their test drivers to pack up and head to Spain for some gravel munching. It was time to test some ideas and try out few setup variations, but also to see what kind of effect higher altitudes will have on the car’s performance (unless this was actually a completely different location and date compared to earlier news of testing in Spain). Compared to team’s earlier test in Spain, this was on a different location and there’s no mention of high altitudes. Now, if you’re like me, you’d like to know what exactly they learned from this test. That, my friends, is something we’re not entitled to know! I bet they were “happy with the results” and that they “acquired valuable information”, because that’s what testing does for you.

Chris Atkinson and Juho Hanninen were in charge of this test and here’s a video documenting their runs. Bring on 2014 already!