South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co. has earned its third win of the 2018 World Rally Championship (WRC), proving the excellent driving technology of its vehicles in the global stage.

The company announced on Monday that a Hyundai i20 driven by Thierry Neuville won the seventh round of the 2018 WRC held in Sardegna, Italy, on June 7-10. With the latest win, Hyundai Motor leads the competition by a margin of 28 points over the runner-up Ford’s world rally team. It also marked the Korean carmaker’s 10th triumph in the rally.

Michel Nandan, head of Hyundai Motor’s world rally team, said that the competition is one of the best opportunities for a finished automaker to test vehicle performance in various conditions such as snowy or sandy roads.

The company has also won five times in the World Touring Car Cup (WTCR) with its first mass producing race car i30N TCR. The WTCR that opened in Morocco in April will be held 10 countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East throughout the year.

The WTCR is one of the three competitions organized by the Federation Internationale de I’Automobile (FIA) along with Formula 1 and WRC. Hyundai has been taking dominant victories in the competition although its i30N TCR is 100 kilograms heavier than the lightest Peugeot 308 TCR.

By Lee Seung-hoon and Choi Mira

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