Photo: Hyundai Motorsport

BRC Hyundai “hoped for more” in South Korea as title hope fades

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The BRC Hyundai team headed to the manufacturer’s home race at Inje Speedium in South Korea with high hopes and a new homologation of the Elantra, but left the race with slim chances of challenging for the 2025 titles.

A wet qualifying session saw Mikel Azcona as the top BRC Hyundai driver in tenth place while team-mates Norbert Michelisz and Néstor Girolami failed to make it to Q2 with 14th and 17th place respectively.

Azcona managed to turn his fortunes around with a solid drive from the Race 2 reversed grid pole position to victory, but is down in ninth place in the drivers’ championship, 176 points behind points leader Yann Ehrlacher.

“I am so happy to take the win in Race 2. Maybe from the outside it looked easy, but that was not an easy race, and I was sweating like crazy,” said Azcona.

“With the 30 kilograms you really suffer, and the degradation of the front-left tyre was quite a lot.

“I was able to overtake two cars at the start (of Race 3) and make some gap. In the last part of the race, I struggled a lot because my front-left tyre was gone so I had to survive. It was tough, but we take very good points for the championship.”

Michelisz is the best placed BRC Hyundai driver in fifth place overall, 148 points from Ehrlacher with 180 points left to fight for from the remaining two race weekends.

And the Hungarian driver could only manage eighth in Race 2 as his best finishes from the three races in South Korea.

“I did my best and finishing P8 was a good result,” said Michelisz.

“In the end it was not the weekend I expected but I knew in advance with the 40 kilograms of compensation weight it would be difficult, but still I was hoping for a bit more.

“In the end we did nice fights, made good improvements on the car set-up and scored some good points.”

BRC Hyundai is placed third in the teams’ championship, trailing points leader Lynk & Co Cyan Racing by 249 points with 325 points left to be fought for from the remaining two race weekends in China and Macau.