Hyundai World Rally Team

Alister McRae driving an Accent WRC at the 2001 Rally Finland.

Hyundai entered motorsport by competing in the F2 class of the World Rally Championship in 1998 and 1999. In September 1999, Hyundai unveiled the Accent WRC, a World Rally Car based on the Hyundai Accent. The Hyundai World Rally Team debuted the car at the 2000 Swedish Rally and achieved their first top-ten result at that year's Rally Argentina, when Alister McRae and Kenneth Eriksson finished seventh and eighth, respectively. Eriksson later drove the car to fifth place in New Zealand and fourth in Australia. In 2001, Hyundai debuted a new evolution of the Accent WRC, which was intended to improve reliability, but the performance of the car was still not good enough to challenge the four big teams (Ford World Rally Team, Mitsubishi, Peugeot and Subaru). However, at the season-ending Rally GB, the team achieved their best result with McRae finishing fourth and Eriksson sixth.

For the 2002 season, Hyundai hired the four-time world champion Juha Kankkunen, along with Freddy Loix and Armin Schwarz. Kankkunen's fifth place in New Zealand was the team's best result, but they managed to edge out Škoda and Mitsubishi by one point in the battle for fourth place in the manufacturers' world championship. In September 2003, after a season hampered by budget constraints, Hyundai announced withdrawal from the WRC and planned to return in 2006, this has never happened though.

In 2006, following the announcement that Korea was scheduled to earn a Formula One Grand Prix race, Hyundai announced that they plan to enter the sport. Korea Earned The 2010 Korean F1, but Hyundai did not participate in any ways.

Hyundai will be announcing future rally plans at the 2011 Chicago Auto Show, on February 9th. The current plans for rally are focused around the newest Hyundai release, the Veloster.

Hyundai have announced (at the Paris Motor Show 2012) that they will be coming back into the WRC for 2014 using the i20 model built to World Rally Car specifications.

WRC results

Year	Car	No	Driver	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	WDC	Points	WMC	Points
2000	Hyundai Accent WRC	14	Kenneth Eriksson	MON	SWE 13	KEN	POR Ret	ESP 23	ARG 8	GRE Ret	NZL 5	FIN 15	CYP	FRA Ret	ITA 45	AUS 4	GBR Ret	11th	5	7th	8
		15	Alister McRae	MON	SWE 14	KEN	POR Ret	ESP Ret	ARG 7	GRE Ret	NZL Ret	FIN 9	CYP	FRA 12	ITA 16	AUS Ret	GBR 11	-	0
2001	Hyundai Accent WRC2	9	Piero Liatti	MON Ret	SWE	POR	ESP Ret	ARG	CYP	GRE	KEN	FIN	NZL	ITA Ret	FRA 8	AUS	GBR	-	0	5th	17
			Kenneth Eriksson	MON	SWE 8	POR 7	ESP	ARG Ret	CYP Ret	GRE Ret	KEN	FIN 12	NZL 10	ITA	FRA	AUS 12	GBR 6	21st	1
		10	Alister McRae	MON 7	SWE Ret	POR 6	ESP 11	ARG 9	CYP 7	GRE 15	KEN	FIN 13	NZL 9	ITA Ret	FRA 9	AUS 10	GBR 4	17th	4
		20	Piero Liatti	MON	SWE	POR	ESP	ARG	CYP Ret	GRE	KEN	FIN	NZL	ITA	FRA	AUS	GBR Ret	-	0
			Juha Kankkunen	MON	SWE	POR	ESP	ARG	CYP	GRE	KEN	FIN Ret	NZL	ITA	FRA	AUS	GBR	-	0
2002	Hyundai Accent WRC3	17	Armin Schwarz	MON Ret	SWE Ret	FRA 13	ESP 16	CYP 7	ARG Ret	GRE 9	KEN Ret	FIN 13	GER Ret	ITA Ret	NZL 10	AUS Ret	GBR Ret	-	0	4th	10
		18	Freddy Loix	MON Ret	SWE Ret	FRA 9	ESP 10	CYP Ret	ARG Ret	GRE Ret	KEN Ret	FIN 9	GER Ret	ITA 28	NZL 6	AUS Ret	GBR 8	17th	1
		19	Juha Kankkunen	MON	SWE 8	FRA	ESP	CYP Ret	ARG 7	GRE Ret	KEN 8	FIN Ret	GER	ITA	NZL 5	AUS Ret	GBR 9	14th	2
			Tomasz Kuchar	MON	SWE	FRA Ret	ESP	CYP 14	ARG	GRE	KEN	FIN	GER	ITA	NZL	AUS	GBR	-	0
2003	Hyundai Accent WRC3	10	Armin Schwarz	MON 8	SWE 13	TUR Ret	NZL Ret	ARG Ret	GRE Ret	CYP 7	GER 12	FIN 12	AUS 13	ITA	FRA	ESP	GBR	15th	3	6th	12
		11	Freddy Loix	MON Ret	SWE 10	TUR 10	NZL Ret	ARG Ret	GRE Ret	CYP Ret	GER 11	FIN 10	AUS 8	ITA	FRA	ESP	GBR	13th*	4*
		11	Jussi Välimäki	MON	SWE Ret	TUR	NZL Ret	ARG	GRE Ret	CYP	GER	FIN Ret	AUS	ITA	FRA	ESP	GBR	-	0
			Justin Dale	MON	SWE	TUR	NZL	ARG	GRE	CYP Ret	GER	FIN	AUS	ITA	FRA	ESP	GBR	-	0
			Manfred Stohl	MON	SWE	TUR	NZL	ARG	GRE	CYP	GER 18	FIN	AUS	ITA	FRA	ESP	GBR	19th*	2*
		25	Justin Dale	MON	SWE	TUR	NZL	ARG	GRE	CYP	GER 28	FIN	AUS	ITA	FRA	ESP	GBR	-	0