Which driver can realistically fight for the Championship?

[EstWRC]

i remeber from somewhere that Ogier's salary was 10 mil

[dimviii]

i remeber from somewhere that Ogier's salary was 10 mil

7 millions euro

[MM WRC]

6 million for Mikkelsen??? If he gets 6, then Latavala must get 10 and Ogier probably 20. All together that should be half of VW’s budget…hard to believe.

I read last year that the best salary Latvala has ever got is about three million.

[EightGear]

Those numbers seem more believable, IIRC Neuville was lured by Hyundai using 3 million too.

[Alpha]

Norwegian media says Mikkelsen earns about 50 mill NOK per year. Unconfirmed of course. Equates to about 6 mill usd or 5,5 eur.

As I said earlier that probably includes private sponsorship in addition to whatever VW pays him.

[sollitt]

With all this talk of money, one of the remarkable speculations is that these 'released' VW drivers will somehow come cheaply because they're already being paid by VW.
It may be Christmas but that's a fairly far fetched fairy tale.

[danon]

Which driver can realistically fight for the Championship?

Anyone can fight - only one can win it.

[olemann]

Excuse my bad English.

Some fun reading that may not reflect the individual country entusiatiske members on this forums. I checked Ewrc-results.com and there I see that there are only Norwegians the last 10 years can compete with France and Finnish in terms of results in the WRC.

Could not bear to go further back to 2006 now and see that British who best ranged between 5 and 21 place in this period and usually with two Norwegians ahead of the best British.
*
Funny to see that Latvala beat Mikkelsen with just 12 points in 2015 and this year is behind Mikkelsen, despite Mikkelsen had to bring in a completely new and fresh codriver to run this season.

Based on what I see today is only 3 drivers who may approach to fight with Ogier next year if those participating and it is Mikkelsen, Neuville and Tanak (if he is not running D-Mack).

[sollitt]

Based on what I see today is only 3 drivers who may approach to fight with Ogier next year if those participating and it is Mikkelsen, Neuville and Tanak (if he is not running DMACK).

Reality is that, currently, there is Ogier ... and then a block of half a dozen, all equally as talented as each other and all with an equal chance of challenging for the title. These would include the 3 you mention and also Meeke, Latvala & Paddon.
With Ogier deprived of his silver spoon next season, I'd suggest there may be 7 viable contenders next year.

[RS]

With all this talk of money, one of the remarkable speculations is that these 'released' VW drivers will somehow come cheaply because they're already being paid by VW.
It may be Christmas but that's a fairly far fetched fairy tale.

They'll come cheaper if they want a seat. Supply and demand...