Time's Up for Latvala...

[Finni]

I think that he's made an enormous amount of progress. He still needs to learn when not to exceed his limit, but the alternative approach of looking to finish without ever getting near the limit (Wilson) is never going to be competitive.

When Latvala started his factory-career 2007 he was fast and unreliable. Nowadays he is slow and and unreliable. There is no progress but regression. Next year is unlikely to be different. Nowadays he is not even fast. Hirvonen is remarkably faster and that's consistent state of affair.

[Tomi]

OK Petter is poor-piss driver nowadays. However on stages he has been consistently faster than Latvala in both C4 rallies. Consider also that Petter had never been driving C4 in muddy conditions before rally GB.

Everyone who says that Petter wouldn't beat Latvala and Sordo in a works car has dropped the ball badly IMO.

why are the works teams not interested in signing him then, they know for sure better.

[Barreis]

They have to pay him - big money 'cos Mr Hollywood means publicity.. Bigone..

[Tomi]

They have to pay him - big money 'cos Mr Hollywood means publicity.. Bigone..

I dont think so, now he pay him self to drive, one could think he would drive for cheap price.

[MJW]

Latvala has contract to drive WRC for M-Sport for next year, that i know.

If you listened to Malcolm on the teams radio scanners after JML went off at the end of that stage on Sunday, you could be tempted to say HAD a contract. MW was more than a little annoyed....... ,my guess is that MW soon cooled down and nothing will change at Ford's driver line up in 2010, except maybe more bring money gang with Block and Atko.

[GigiGalliNo1]

I dont think so, now he pay him self to drive, one could think he would drive for cheap price.

Not really. If he was in a good car in the past and he was a top driver....

so a top driver back in a good car will equal results... and results mean good pay.

My opinion.

[Tomi]

If you listened to Malcolm on the teams radio scanners after JML went off at the end of that stage on Sunday, you could be tempted to say HAD a contract. MW was more than a little annoyed....... ,my guess is that MW soon cooled down and nothing will change at Ford's driver line up in 2010, except maybe more bring money gang with Block and Atko.

I agree, many times he cant screw up anymore, and its because of him Ford lost the manu title this year.

[Barreis]

These days factory teams don't care for names 'cos there's no other teams and there's only one name in public (from living drivers) that even kids on the street know: Loeb..

[Tomi]

Not really. If he was in a good car in the past and he was a top driver....

so a top driver back in a good car will equal results... and results mean good pay.

My opinion.

much possible, no idea it was only a guess, its propably nicer to whine all the time and pay for it as well.

[Mintexmemory]

I agree, many times he cant screw up anymore, and its because of him Ford lost the manu title this year.

At the risk of being boring it's Ford's fault (and M-Sport) that they didn't win the Manufacturers Championship. Just like in F1 it was no contest for the first 5 rounds. Simply the C4 was a far superior car which caused the Ford guys, especially J-M L, to have to overdrive to keep in touch. So just who does the development work over winter? Young Matthew perhaps!
From my observations, I believe (1st hand in Ireland) that Jari-Matti was being told to go flat out to 'panic' the Citroen team. That might explain why he is cut the slack by Malcolm, hard to sack a guy when he's doing what he's told.
It's fair to criticise J-M L for the brain-fade in Poland but Catalunya was never going to be Ford event and for Rally GB the equipment he was given was sub-standard. He also won Sardinia on merit, how many events did Sordo win out of the list of Loeb failures?