Realistic vieuw for the future of rally I.M.O. mokin:

Source, http://www.rallye-info.com/article.asp?sid=0&stid=6085

The French daily paper "Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace" prints a rather interesting Rally Argentina article in today's 6th May 07 issue. Actually, they didn't find much to write about the slimmed Rally Argentina and made an interview with Kronos' Marc van Daalen instead - with surprising outcome!


Indeed Marc van Daalen finds a few harsh words, that are nearly unprintable, of the state the WRC is in. Not because of what happened in Argentina, the WRC in general. It is not really all new words. Marc van Daalen in his Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace interview goes into things as the uninteresting and very expensive calendar, how in the still young season we already see people like Gigi Galli, Xavier Pons, Francois Duval on the sidelines.
However then Marc van Daalen comes with the bomb: Daniel Carlsson's season is finished too! According to the French newspaper, Daniel Carlsson has informed van Daalen that his budget is finished.
And the next bomb follows on the trott: It sounds more serious than the bitter words of the moment, when Marc van Daalen announces that Kronos too is to withdraw from the WRC at the end of this season! He follows up with a few more words that are difficult to translate in a diplomatic manner. Basically the WRC has a problem, and with Kronos, M2 teams included, another one down, four left to go - and Kronos will change into the IRC from 2008!
What the article doesn't say, is that Kronos is actually scheduled to have their IRC debut already in Ypres, round3 2007. Here they will run Bernd Casier in a Peugeot 207 S2000. More IRC starts for Bernd Casier in 2007 are possible, while Kronos' aim was to run a Peugeot 2-car team on a full IRC season in 2008. However all these news never confirmed in any way that this meant the end of Kronos' WRC participation in 2008.
Interestingly, the driver currently most rumoured to drive the 2nd Kronos 207 in 2008 is Francois Duval. Duval is currently one of the many drivers suffering the WRC dilemma. He has major support from Skoda Mlada Boleslav as well as Skoda Belgium importers, yet even that was not enough to keep his WRC season on track.