Hyundai Motorsport has made an adjustment to its crew line-up for the 2017 FIA World Rally Championship, deciding to ‘rest’ Kiwi Hayden Paddon with Norwegian driver Andreas Mikkelsen joining the team for Rally de España, alongside Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo.
“Unfortunately I’m sure a lot of you have already seen the news that we will not be at Rally Spain,” commented Paddon. “Naturally, we are really dissappointed in this decision but also accept we have had a very bad year (for many reasons) and this is the cut throat reality of professional sport.
“We will not give up – we remain under contract until the end of the 2018 season and still have some rally’s remaining this year to show what I know we are capable of. This whole situation only fuels the fire more and I will not let 20 years of hard work, tears, sacrifice by myself and many others go to waste over a few bad events.”
It is unclear whether Paddon will partake in any more WRC rounds in 2017 with Mikkelsen set to compete in all three remaining rounds of the championship – in Spain, Wales GB and Australia – together with his co-driver Anders Jæger-Synnevaag.
All three of Hyundai Motorsport’s existing crews will remain under contract with the team but the specific driver line-up will differ in each of the remaining rounds of the season, details of which will be announced in due course.
Hyundai Motorsport has lost ground in the Manufacturers’ Championship in recent rallies, so the difficult decision to adjust crews has been made in an effort to close the gap to M-Sport in the final three rounds.
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