2023 WRC News & Rumours

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Originally Posted by mknight

My guess is Joukhi offered money for putting Sunninen in cause he was pissed Lappi (EVEN) got a full year contract.

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Good guess.

Joukhi has helped drivers for years, he also helped lots of good talents to not get a chance because he invented to pay lots for seats. Maybe he helped to ruin the sport?


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How difficult it is to write names correctly? :) Jouhki & Suninen

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Originally Posted by skarderud

Good guess.

Joukhi has helped drivers for years, he also helped lots of good talents to not get a chance because he invented to pay lots for seats. Maybe he helped to ruin the sport?


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No, bringing budget was/is normal in motorsport except for a few.

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Originally Posted by mknight

My guess is Joukhi offered money for putting Sunninen in cause he was pissed Lappi (EVEN) got a full year contract.

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Why would he continue to fund Suninen in a factory seat? Isn't point of his model to get his investment back once a driver has a factory seat?

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Originally Posted by becher

No, bringing budget was/is normal in motorsport except for a few.

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Both, but before it wasn't this amount of money.
Good talents could drive for free, or a small amount of money. The team/brand/importer put in the rest.
This was quite normal in the 90's.
Today it is normal to put in awful lot of money, of course it become more expensive thru the years too, but ie M-sport that find out someone was able to pay much more for the seat than before, made it more difficult for talents to get up there.

It's to few manu's around, and the few seats possible has been paid out, maybe not by the most interresting drivers from a sporting point of wiew.

Maybe i'm just old:)

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We don't know who pays to drive or is paid to drive so it's all speculation. But bringing in budget has been very common in rallying throughout the decades. It just has often been about bringing in a sponsor or getting money from your local importer. We know that Marcus Grönholm was promised a Toyota seat for 1999 but in the end Didier Auriol got more support from Toyota's French importer so he got the gig and Grönholm was left out (although in the end it was a much better result for Grönholm). We also know that a certain red-white livery often followed Freddy Loix no matter which car he drove.

Same with Sainz, Repsol or Telefonica were usually on his cars. Budget is part of the game.

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Originally Posted by seb_sh

Same with Sainz, Repsol or Telefonica were usually on his cars. Budget is part of the game.

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And Sainz is a curious example because for sure he wouldn't have needed any extra budget

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Originally Posted by AnttiL

We don't know who pays to drive or is paid to drive so it's all speculation. But bringing in budget has been very common in rallying throughout the decades. It just has often been about bringing in a sponsor or getting money from your local importer. We know that Marcus Grönholm was promised a Toyota seat for 1999 but in the end Didier Auriol got more support from Toyota's French importer so he got the gig and Grönholm was left out (although in the end it was a much better result for Grönholm). We also know that a certain red-white livery often followed Freddy Loix no matter which car he drove.

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Freddy taking that Red-White livery to Mitsubishi probably put the end to his progress. In the Corolla he was very quick, but went nowhere in the Lancer.

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Originally Posted by AnttiL

And Sainz is a curious example because for sure he wouldn't have needed any extra budget

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Not that unusual, sponsors that have a bond with successful drivers tend to follow them around. But it is obviously a different matter than bringing a sponsor to fund a drive.