The chance to work with a manufacturer making waves in the industry, and building a legacy for both its road cars and motorsport activities, also appeals. “It is a brand that I have a lot of admiration for, the way they are building leadership on technology electrification, their design,” effuses Abiteboul.
“I am so respectful for what is going on in Korea,” he adds, comparing the general industrial direction of the country, not just Hyundai, to the West Coast of America during the development of the internet and then arrival of giants like Amazon, Google and Apple.
The differences between F1 and WRC
So, what are the similarities between operating in F1 and the WRC? He admits: “The list is much shorter than the list of differences. It is very, very different and I think to a certain degree they should not be compared. At the end of the day, it’s motor sport, and it’s racing cars. But every single thing is different.”
This extends from the way a weekend of competition plays out, through to the development of the cars. For example, whereas F1 sees constant development race by race, in rallying, updates are limited and can only be introduced in the form of ‘jokers’, which can only be brought into play at specific points in the season. This requires a very strategic approach, and finding the right timing when bringing new parts can have a major impact of competitive form through the year.
But, says Abiteboul, the leadership requirements for a team principal are exactly the same as in F1. “You are building organisations that are driven by performance, which are driven by results. It is very satisfying when you’re managing a group of people, which is only looking in one direction, which is the direction of performance and success.”
One area Abiteboul does hope to bring his F1 experience to bear is optimising the driver-engineer relationship. “I’m trying to build a bit of what I’ve seen in Formula 1, which is great at [building] exchanges between engineers and drivers.”
In rallying, probably even more so than F1, this communication is vital. Teams are relatively data blind, there is no live telemetry and the rules limit the number of sensors permitted on the cars. This places an onus on drivers being able to feed back how the cars feel in a way that each teams’ engineers can act upon. Of course, every outfit also uses modelling and simulation tools to inform setups, but with ‘feel’ so imperative to driver confidence and thus speed on stages, there is a limit to what these tools can achieve.