Hyundai Motorsport continues pursuit of Nürburgring 24 Hours victories with three-car entry

Hyundai Motorsport will look to continue its hugely successful record in the Nürburgring 24 Hours, with three cars set to line up for this year’s race (May 14-17) competing of victory in two classes of the race.

In the TCR class, where Hyundai Motorsport has been victorious for the last five years with the Hyundai Elantra N TCR, the team will be represented by a single entry for the first time since their arrival in the class in 2018. However, the lone Elantra N TCR for 2026 features a highly talented line-up who have helped Hyundai to multiple class victories in the past. Between them, Marc Basseng, Manuel Lauck and Mikel Azcona have ten TCR class wins at the Nürburgring 24 Hours with Hyundai Motorsport, with Basseng also claiming overall victory at the event in 2012.

The quartet of drivers for the car in 2026 is completed by Nico Bastian, making his first Nürburgring 4 Hours start as part of the Hyundai Motorsport team. However, the German’s experience at the event matches those he will join at the wheel of the TCR car, with five top-ten overall finishes in GT3-spec cars, including a fifth place in 2018

The TCR entry will be joined on track by a pair of Elantra N1 RP, competing in the SP4T class. The brand-new cars are powered by a pre-production version of a new engine, intended as the replacement for the current two-litre powerplant that lies at the heart of the road-going Elantra N and forms the base of the successful engine in the Elantra N TCR race car.

The line-ups for the two cars combine class winning experience with talent drawn from Hyundai’s pool of young drivers around the world. Azcona, who in 2026 is also in his fifth year as part of Hyundai Motorsport customer team in the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour, and Lauck will also make up half the team for the first of the two entries, alongside German Mark Wallenwein and Korean Gyumin Kim, who will start his third Nürburgring 24 Hours with Hyundai, having previously driven The Elantra N Cup and i30 Fastback N in the race.

His countrymen, and fellow competitors from the N Festival N1 class, Youngchan Kim and Woojin Shin join Wallenwein in the second Elantra N1 RP, with the driving line-up completed by young American driver CJ Sepulveda, who has previously raced the Elantra N1 in the TC America series.

The event will act as a public validation and demonstration of the new powertrain, ahead of a planned integration in Hyundai’s future N models. The decision to use the race as part of the development of the engine reinforces the long-standing connection between N and the Nürburgring Nordschleife. From the Hyundai Motor Europe Technical Centre that lies close to the circuit’s Döttinger Höhe, laps around the track have been a vital part of the development of multiple Hyundai models. However, the use of the biggest race of the year at the circuit is an even tougher test and will put the engine through the same examination given to the current 2-litre engine in 2016.

Hyundai Motorsport Customer Racing Benoit Nogier said: “Hyundai Motorsport and Hyundai have a long a successful history at the Nürburgring. As a race team we have enjoyed repeated success at the Nürburgring 24 Hours, with Elantra N TCR team winning the TCR class for the last five years, and the track has played a crucial role in helping to develop the high-performance N-Brand models. For 2026 we aim to extend our winning record in the TCR class with the Elantra N TCR. Mikel Azcona, Marc Basseng and Manuel Lauck are all hugely experienced and successful in the car and race already, and to add Nico Bastian to the team for this season, brings even more endurance racing and Nürburgring Nordschleife experience to the squad. Meanwhile, the pair of Elantra N1 RP not only show the international footprint of Hyundai’s racing profile in its driver line-ups but also the importance of the race to the manufacturer as a proving ground for the next generation of technology for both road and race cars.”