It is fair to say Andreas Mikkelsen has been knocking on the door for a return to the World Rally Championship ever since falling out of the top tier in 2019. These knocks have become increasingly louder after winning two WRC2 titles and a European Rally Championship, but still the three-time WRC rally winner felt at times that he would never taste the big time again.
After coming so close to a return this year before Hyundai made a late swoop for Esapekka Lappi, Mikkelsen has achieved the goal he set out four years ago after putting pen to paper on a deal this week to share Hyundai’s third WRC i20 N challenger with Lappi and Dani Sordo.
“I have been trying hard to come back to the top level since 2019 when we finished with Hyundai, so it has been some long years I would say,” Mikkelsen tells Motorsport.com at Hyundai’s Alzenau WRC headquarters fresh from signing his one-year contract.
“I’m very happy now to be back and fighting with the big boys. I was very close last year. After 2020 and 2021 no, but after last season I was very close.”
The deal marks a full circle moment for the 34-year-old Norwegian as it was at Hyundai when he last drove in the WRC’s top flight in 2019. He finished fourth in the championship that year, despite missing three rounds, as Hyundai rotated its drivers Sebastien Loeb, Thierry Neuville, Sordo and Craig Breen between the sky blue and orange machines.
But come 2020 Mikkelsen’s name was a notable omission from the Hyundai line-up. Ott Tanak was signed from Toyota to join Neuville, while Loeb, Sordo and Breen shared the third car.
It came as a shock considering Mikkelsen had emerged as a genuine rising star during his four-year stint at Volkswagen, that included three wins. The last of those, at Rally Australia in 2016, was perhaps arguably the most impressive as he defeated world champion team-mate Sebastien Ogier fair and square.
Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images
Mikkelsen has been absent from the top level of the WRC since 2019 when he last competed for Hyundai
After losing his drive at Hyundai, the COVID-ravaged 2020 season left Mikkelsen with just one WRC2 outing as he began to plot a journey back to the top. Skoda proved to be his saviour in the form of a WRC2 programme with Toksport, but it would be a pressure-filled three seasons competing against a bunch of young hungry talents aiming to take the scalp of a WRC rally winner.
Knowing that failure to beat them could have…
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