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World Rally Championship driver Dani Sordo took a podium finish from his one-off European Rally Championship outing in Hyundai’s R5 car on Rally Zlin.
Hyundai entered Sordo on the Czech event, which was his first run in the R5 car, in a bid to showcase the ERC-eligible version of the i20.
He spent the wet/dry weekend around the top five, hampered by a puncture and wheel rim damage on Saturday, before making it ahead of cautious Junior U28 class leader Nikolay Gryazin for third on the final afternoon.
Despite a late surge from local driver Miroslav Jakes, using standard wets while Sordo was experimenting with the extreme version to gain knowledge for his WRC campaign, the Hyundai driver held on to take his podium by just 0.3 seconds.
Sordo finished 53.6s adrift of winner Jan Kopecky, who took a record-extending eighth victory on his home event and his fourth in a row.
The WRC2 championship leader and factory Skoda driver had to fight back from three Saturday punctures to overhaul Aleksey Lukyanuk for the lead three stages from the end.
Second place, 7.5s behind Kopecky, was still good news for ERC leader Lukyanuk’s title bid as his championship rival Bruno Magalhaes struggled all weekend and finished a distant ninth.