Hyundai’s roof vent colour code

Long gone are the days when competition numbers are important for spotting which driver is at the wheel of a passing competition car.

Dani Sordo's Hyundai sports a red roof vent to distinguish it from his team-mate's cars. (Photo: Martin Holmes Rallying)It is now many years since spectators could identify the drivers of Formula 1 by their number, which needs a magnifying glass to read.  

In rallying it is different situation because competition numbers frequently change.  

Here the FIA try to help, by requiring the names of the driver and co-driver, with national flags, to be placed on the rear side windows, though that doesn’t identify which crew member is actually the driver.  

Colour coding arrived to help some time ago.  M-Sport, Peugeot and Skoda have used this identification system for some years.  Volkswagen hardly need to do this as they keep their competition numbers from event to event, but to help when images are taken in which competition numbers are not visible (which happens frequently), they paint the wing mirrors to suit their driver.  

Ogier’s mirrors are blue, Latvala’s are red and Mikkelsen’s are yellow.  

Then comes Hyundai.  They change their competition numbers (reserved numbers 3, 4, 10 and 20) according to which driver drives for which of their teams.  They paint their roof scoops different colours - Neuville’s scoop is black, Sordo’s is orange, Paddon’s is green and Abbring’s is blue.  

Sounds simple, except that Hyundai keep moving the position of their roof scoops.  

The team explained: Our plan was to have two air vents, one on each side, but it didn’t go through homologation, so we have been using one with a longer tube to get air to the co-drivers’ side.  

“As this wasn’t ideal, we have the air vent in the middle now so the air is distributed inside the car in a better way.”
 
- Martin Holmes  

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