Guess they’re bored with the Nürburgring.
Shedding almost no disguise, Hyundai brought a couple of i30N performance-hatchback prototypes to Bathurst for testing last month, taking the opportunity to further refine its Volkswagen Golf GTI competitor on our shores before the car makes its official debut in the near future.
One particular prototype participated in the Nulon Hill Climb and Super Sprint events, with Hyundai WRC test driver Brendan Reeves at the wheel. Hyundai took the opportunity to collect more data and calibrate the i30N’s display systems, which will benefit from MoTeC technology, like the kind found in Hyundai’s current crop of rally cars.
MoTeC’s data acquisition systems will be used in the i30N to provide keen drivers with the sort of performance-geared stats and figures, giving drivers access to the same displays found in competition rally cars. These features include things like lap timing, performance information, data logging, customised graphical layouts, and video overlaying. This could be considered a key link between Hyundai’s N performance cars and their racing efforts, underlining how racing R&D directly contributes to what we see in showrooms.
“We do a lot of testing at the Nürburgring Nordschlieffe, but there are also other very challenging race tracks out there. And one of the most challenging is Bathurst here, in Australia,” said Albert Biermann, Hyundai’s vice president and N Performance boss. Biermann was present at the Bathurst event, watching over one of the last phases of the i30N’s Australian engineering programme. The i30N has actually been here for some time, undergoing weather and endurance testing along with quality and performance evaluations.
“It’s a very good experience to drive here at Mount Panorama,” Biermann said. “The data we gather [in Bathurst], we will continue in Europe. I think the right driver on this track would have a lot of fun with the i30N. COO of Hyundai Australia Scott Grant said that “the i30N is designed to be a hot hatch, that will be very much at home on the race track. Validation testing at Mount Panorama was a key part of its global engineering development programme.”
“But that’s just half the story,” Grant continued. “It has to work well on our uniquely challenging roads too, so local testing and evaluation is critical. Australia will be one of the largest markets for this car, globally. The results have been very impressive, and personally, I cannot wait to see how Australian driving enthusiasts respond to this great little hot hatch.”
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