2023 WRC News & Rumours

[RS]

Previous Rally 1 car experience can not be that strong argument - orherwise you don't have any choice.

I think with Mikkelsen the reason to not get Rally 1 seat is somewhere else. Related to previous experiences and maybe "still learning the car" times from Hyundai. He has at least average speed on the field, but problably not enough to overweight some other arguments. But his marketing campaign "I'll dominate WRC2" didn't went that well also.

Year 1 no (although he won the title). This year I think he did a pretty comprehensive job, even though that didn’t end with the title.

[mknight]

Previous Rally 1 car experience can not be that strong argument - orherwise you don't have any choice.

I think with Mikkelsen the reason to not get Rally 1 seat is somewhere else. Related to previous experiences and maybe "still learning the car" times from Hyundai. He has at least average speed on the field, but problably not enough to overweight some other arguments. But his marketing campaign "I'll dominate WRC2" didn't went that well also.

He had same speed as Loeb in Hyundai and finished 4th in WRC in 2019 beating Evans (same number of rallies) as well as Latvala and Meeke in Toyota and Lappi in Citroen all 3 with 2 more starts than him.
On gravel his speed was on top Hyundai level at the time, tarmac was bad (again just like Loeb).
But it is funny how his results seemingly get talked about as worse and worse for every year since.

In Rally2 he won two Championships at once with most wins in both of them. But sure he didn't win every rally, yet was faster than Breen in all starts.

Anyway based on all rumors he had contract ready for 6+ rallies at Hyundai before Lappi decided to jump ship. So for Hyundai who have most recent direct experience he was good enough, but not for MSport. Cause as I said I believe MSport will never let him drive unless he pays.

[Allez Andruet]

When Breen got the "deal" he has not driven Rally1 car either (so unknown), has not driven more than 4 rallies per year for 3 years and had close to zero experience on half of the rallies in calendar.

Not gonna bother to comment on the first point as it's quite obvious, but while Mikkelsen's been out from the top class for three years, Breen had three podiums from his last three WRC starts (all within the past six months at the time) when getting the deal. As the question was about offering a "similar deal" to Mikkelsen as was to Breen a year ago, I think that sums it up (sure Breen wasn't the complete package either and that was known, but his recent CV was quite far apart from Mikkelsen's). Fourmaux and Greensmith aren't exactly in the same competition.

[mknight]

Not gonna bother to comment on the first point as it's quite obvious, but while Mikkelsen's been out from the top class for three years, Breen had three podiums from his last three WRC starts (all within the past six months at the time) when getting the deal. As the question was about offering a "similar deal" to Mikkelsen as was to Breen a year ago, I think that sums it up (sure Breen wasn't the complete package either and that was known, but his recent CV was quite far apart from Mikkelsen's). Fourmaux and Greensmith aren't exactly in the same competition.

There is not much point to argue about details, but in general a year ago Breen was considered a rising prospect with possibly bigger potential. This year (as Adamo recently commented) he has shown he can't (yet??) be n1 cause he does not handle the pressure. Mikkelsen was "safer" choice with less potential.

But a year ago is a year ago.

Right now MSport does not have any driver that can be hoped to consistently show the speed of the car and be able to fight for podiums on all or most rounds. Breen got kicked cause he was not able to do that. Loubet can't do that (yet?), no podium yet and on quite a few rallies he doesn't have experience or speed (yet). Fourmaux and Greensmith have shown they can't do that and Loeb won't do many starts.

Mikkelsen is clearly the best available choice (besides Tanak). Question is if MSports aims have been downscaled even more from last year.

[pettersolberg29]

Presume Breen wasn’t paying for his drive, although probably not actually paid much?

I can’t see why they wouldn’t offer a similar deal to Mikkelsen, who is at least a multiple WRC event winner.

Breen paid for his MSport drive - to replace Breen you'd have to bring a fair chunk of change with you! MSport certainly wouldn't pay to have Andreas in the seat so Andreas would have to come with more money than he has.

[flat_right]

Breen paid for his MSport drive - to replace Breen you'd have to bring a fair chunk of change with you! MSport certainly wouldn't pay to have Andreas in the seat so Andreas would have to come with more money than he has.

Wasn't it this way that Breen got a "free" car from M-Sport and his salary was paid by his personal sponsors. So in a way Breen didn't have to pay for M-Sport?

[pettersolberg29]

Wasn't it this way that Breen got a "free" car from M-Sport and his salary was paid by his personal sponsors. So in a way Breen didn't have to pay for M-Sport?

AFAIK M-Sport made money from Breen - how much I couldn't say, but the amount he gets from his 'benefactor' is more than I think he'd use just for salary so assume a big chunk went into Malcolm's pocket too. Perhaps not, but if not then Breen is a very, very well paid man!

[skarderud]

No, I don't.

Hot tip: don't eat those mushrooms you find in the Forest.

Sent fra min SM-G950F via Tapatalk

[Allez Andruet]

Mikkelsen is clearly the best available choice (besides Tanak).

That's a very bold statement which is based on the assumption that the performance level of Mikkelsen vs. the others would have been on a standstill for the past three years. Who knows, it might have been, but on any sport that's not the most obvious outcome and I assume it's not something which mr. Wilson would put his money on either.

[AnttiL]

Mikkelsen will remain enigmatic, we can only guess. My guess is that he would be similar as in the Hyundai in 2017-2019, showing flashes of speed but rarely being able to keep it up throughout a rally, and sometimes being just totally lost. Or then something like Breen this year. But still, there aren't really better options either, or at least it's difficult to compare to some other prospects. The level of the top drivers in WRC is very high at the moment, and it's really hard get there. Fighting for 4-5 positions or sometimes leading the rally is not enough. I would also consider Mikkelsen relatively old, but then again 2022 has shown us that maybe it's better for youngsters (except Kalle ) to stay in lower classes and gather experience.