[WRC] News & Rumours 2021

[Danny0405]

Difficult to make an evaluation of Adamo in the last 3 years.
He was appointed quite late before the 2019 season so he was not in charge when Hyundai hired Loeb over Paddon (from a strictly result-wise point of view, not a great move) and had few impact on the development of the car on that year as a lot was in the pipe (and Toyota was already taking the lead by end-2018).
And he was not the developer of the shared-car strategy as it was already used in 2018.
And on the last two years, complicated to focus on the development of the car with a new regulation to come + Covid whereas Toyota’s car was better since end 2018.

The Tanak move is not brilliant from a cost/benefit perspective so far, especially as it triggered Ogier’s hiring by Toyota (which wouldn’t have occurred without that). But, at least, Tanak was a strong contributor to Hyundai’s 2020 manufacturer title which was quite a miracle.

And for the Rally2 car, the debut rallye has been quite worrying but Citroen was nowhere when they launched the C3 R5. And the Polo had also reliability issue in its debut. We will really see by mid-2022 if this car has some potential.

So it’s difficult for me to evaluate him. On the one hand, Hyundai made back-to-back manufacturer titles whereas they didn’t win any title before but, on the other hand, they didn’t really improve against Toyota, the 2020 title was clearly a miracle and the 2019 title was deserved (thanks to the strategy) but clearly due to Latvala and Meeke’s failure (Meeke being the only Makinen’s bad choice maybe in his Toyota stint).
So, even if some can be «*seduced*» by his sharp style, he didn’t really bring solutions to Hyundai (but he might not be the only guilty of their current situation).

The only thing I know is that the 2022 season is crucial for Hyundai. Such a manufacturer dominated by VW, then M-Sport and then Toyota will not last forever. Yes, they clinched two titles but more by strategy than by quality. If the 2022 season is as bad as the current season, they will leave quite soon.