Photo: WTCR

Exploiting Hyundai Elantra potential key to 2022 title fight says Norbert Michelisz

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BRC Racing Team’s Norbert Michelisz believes the team is in a far better position to mount a consistent World Touring Car Cup title assault in the second year of the Hyundai Elantra N TCR.

The Elantra replaced the i30 N TCR at the start of last season and claimed four victories across the year, with Michelisz taking one in the Czech round at Most.

But the car struggled for consistent performance throughout the year, which hampered its title charge despite Jean-Karl Vernay finishing third in the drivers’ standings.

Michelisz, the 2019 WTCR champion, reckons the new season offers an opportunity for the Elantra to follow through on its potential and says that a year of experience has been the key to such pre-season optimism.

“The car is more or less the same as last year,” Michelisz told TouringCarTimes.

“We started basically from scratch in 2021 in testing and there we thought that there was a lot of potential but we couldn’t quite get the maximum out of it every weekend.

“So, having a year in the books, with all the information we gathered from last year, we probably haven’t made the car faster; we’ve just understood it better to make it more consistent from one race to another, from one circuit to another.

“I feel that this year, the potential is the same but we will have a much better understanding of what the car can do to exploit this potential on a regular basis.”

The consistency Michelisz refers to is something the Hungarian feels is a necessary element from the start of the season if the Hyundai outfit is going to challenge for top honours come the end of the year.

On top of that, rectifying the performance gap at the Elantra’s weaker circuits in 2021, is what Michelisz believes the off-season work will achieve.

“Last year, the car was working much better at the Nürburgring than we ever imagined, and then at the next race at Estoril we struggled a bit,” he said.

“In qualifying we struggled but the race weekend was still okay. And then again, we sometimes had good weekends and others we struggled at, for example in Hungary, in Adria, we just weren’t able to extract everything we had.

“If you want to fight for a championship, you need a car that is consistent. It’s all very well having a car which is fast, but it’s even more important to understand how to exploit this potential.”