testen gaat voorspoedig voor Hyundai

[Raceboy]

Schwarz and Loix Praise Hyundai Accent.

Hyundai Castrol World Rally Team crews Armin Schwarz and Manfred Hiemer, and Freddy Loix and Sven Smeets successfully completed testing the Hyundai WRC² for the Rallye Monte Carlo, the season-opener for the 2002 FIA World Rally Championship.

The team spent six days in the south of France on roads employed by most teams, as their characteristics are similar to roads used for the Rallye Monte Carlo. Surfaces covered included dry, wet and icy tarmac but unfortunately no snow as the region as yet to experience a snowfall. This will be covered on a test at a later date.

Loix was complementary from the start. "We spent the first day on dry tarmac and by the end of that day the car felt very good and we were happy with what we had achieved. The following few days we tested on icy roads that became wet after the sun came out, and although the car felt ok, it was very difficult to get any heat into the tyres to know which were going to be the best choice. Hopefully we will be able to confirm that detail on the January test."

Team-mate Armin Schwarz, who tested the Accent WRC² for the fist time after signing the deal with the Anglo-Korean team, was also optimistic.

He said: "Obviously to begin with we had to very quickly get a general feeling of the car as this was our first test. We had some roads that were mixed surfaces and quite bumpy and tight and twisty - quite like the roads you get in Monte Carlo. We made suspension changes to help with tyre performance and are quite happy with our choices. In the damper conditions, on the whole the car works well, and the teamwork put in by the mechanics and engineers to get the car exactly as I want it was amazing, but there are still a few areas that we need to work on a little bit more. We will have some more confirmation testing before Monte Carlo and after that we should definitely be able to set some better times."

Rallye Monte Carlo kicks off the 2002 season running from January 17-20, and will be contested by Armin Schwarz and Freddy Loix. Juha Kankkunen and co-driver Juha Repo will be joining the Hyundai Castrol World Rally Team crews for the first non-tarmac event for the International Swedish Rally in February.

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