Hyundai i30 N crackles and growls at Mount Panorama

HYUNDAI’S i30 N hot hatch is nearing release, and to help prepare the car for Aussie customers the Korean brand has had a crack at Bathurst.

International racing drivers visiting Australia often compare our Mount Panorama racing circuit to the infamous Nordschleife in Germany – apt, seeing the i30 N has undergone extensive evaluation at the Green Hell.

The main purpose of this full-throttle attack on Bathurst was to calibrate the car’s MoTeC dash unit, and Hyundai put local rally ace Brendan Reeves behind the wheel to do so.

A camo-clad i30 N took part in a number of runs up the mountain during a Nulon Hill Climb and Super Sprint event, with vice president of Hyundai high performance engineering, Albert Biermann, in attendance.

“We do a lot of testing at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, but there are also other very challenging race tracks out there, and one of the most challenging is Bathurst here in Australia,” Biermann said.

“It’s a very good experience to drive here at Mount Panorama and include the data we gather into our tuning that we will continue in Europe. I think the right driver on this track would have a lot of fun with the i30 N.”

Hyundai says Reeves’ runs helped identify some areas of improvement within the unit, which Hyundai engineers in Germany and South Korea will work to fix.

Engineering and evaluation aside, the video released by Hyundai provides a great glimpse at how the 202kW hot hatch will sound once it arrives on Aussie shores later this year.

There is plenty of crackle and carryon from the exhaust as Reeve’s attacks our most iconic race track.

Hyundai Australia chief operating officer, Scott Grant, says the pocket rocket will work well both on track, and off.

“The i30 N is designed to be a hot hatch that will be very much at home on the race track, so validation testing at Mount Panorama was a key part of its global engineering development programme,” he said.

“But that’s just half the story. It has to work well on our uniquely challenging roads, too, so local testing and evaluation is critical, especially as Australia will be one of the largest markets for this car globally. The results have been very impressive and personally I can’t wait to see how Australian enthusiast drivers respond to this great little hot hatch.”