Predosa (Italy), September 7, 2016
The news was in the air; to make it official all that was needed was the green light from Hyundai Motorsport once the car obtained homologation.
The Hyundai New Generation i20 R5 is a reality and, as previously announced, HMI will be the first to receive the customer cars.
The Italian team will have the honour to take the car to its debut in the World Championship Rally in Corsica, from 29 September to 2 October.
Thanks to the close cooperation with Hyundai Motorsport, which will provide on-event technical support to the team, HMI has the opportunity to field the new i20 R5 from the debut event in the WRC.
The crew will be Fabio Andolfi and Manuel Fenoli. The young Italian driver is tackling in 2016 his second season in the WRC3 World Championship, where he currently lies in fourth position after the victory in the Rally D'Italia Sardegna, the podium in Monte-Carlo and other points finishes.
In Corsica, besides Andolfi, there will also be two new i20 R5 for Kevin Abbring, Hyundai Motorsport works driver, and Stephane Sarrazin, strong French driver and connoisseur of the Rally of Corsica who will be supported by a private Belgian team.
The decisive contributions for the realization of this operation came from ACI TEAM ITALIA and ACI Sport, which in the last two years have given young drivers from our federation essential growth opportunities by supporting their activities in the World Championship, and Pirelli, which as well as providing tyres has always been attentive to the participations of young drivers in motorsports.
Andolfi's car will be assembled in the Alzenau factory in the coming days and will arrive in the HMI workshop in the week before Corsica, in time for the latest customizations and preparations before departing for the island race.
A big acknowledgement also goes to the XRACE Sport team and to a group of HMI sponsors who believed in the validity of this operation.