The performance arm’s VP, Joonwoo Park, explains how the automaker’s pulled off recent class wins at Pikes Peak and the Nurburgring 24 Hours
He’s known around the Hyundai group as “VP Joon,” and he’s younger than most automotive executives at this level—VP Joon grew up as an avid player of the Gran Turismo video game series before he was old enough to drive real cars. He fondly remembers watching Japanese car shows like Initial D and Hot Version. Even at that young age, he dreamed of creating Korea’s first performance brand, something akin to BMW’s M or Mercedes’ AMG. He was involved in the first N brand strategy paper, which road-mapped the N brand’s direction from 2013 to 2020.
One of the ideas that he’s most passionate about is the connection between racing cars and their sporty production versions. The engine that now powers the Elantra N was first tested in 2016 in the automaker’s race cars, for example. The i30 N was also raced at the Nurburgring 24 Hours as part of its development.
This year’s Nurburgring endurance race wasn’t the best for eager fans, as the nominally 24-hour event was dampened by a historic 17-hour fog delay, but it was a great race for Hyundai. It fielded three Elantra Ns, and they finished 1-2-3 in the TCR class. The class-winning Hyundai Elantra Ns all used a production block with modified turbochargers. It’s worth noting the turbos used on the race cars are sourced from within the Hyundai brand, but the company won’t tell us which Hyundai model. Regardless, the racers use production-based powertrain components throughout.
“We want to be close to our customers,” VP Joon says. And to do that, “the cars customers drive have to have a connection with motorsports.” He’s especially excited about the idea of electric performance cars. VP Joon states that he wants to show “that EVs can be fun and have this performance.”
On Friday, ahead of the big race, there was a drift exhibition on the Nurburgring GP track that showed off that fun potential. Two Hyundai Ioniq 5 Ns were participating, one a specially prepared drift car, the other completely stock, and both were piloted by Hyundai N R&D drivers. While the lack of engine noise from both was a little strange in the context of a drift event, the stock model acquitted itself well, and showed just how exciting these EVs can be.
The Pikes Peak Hill Climb offered Hyundai another chance to put its performance EVs to the test. The automaker’s entries included two stock Ioniq 5 Ns and two modified time attack examples.
Some in Canada may not know it, but Hyundai has an extremely successful rally program in Europe where it competes in the top R1 class (among other classes). Hyundai has an entire workshop in Germany, in fact, where it designs and build rally cars. When asked why Hyundai didn’t field an “unrestricted” R1 rally car at Pikes Peak, VP Joon replied with a smile: “We wanted to have a difficult project.”
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