[WRC] Monza Rally 2020

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Originally Posted by dimviii

thanks for answering mknight.

so toyota managed to lost the manufacturer championship while at drivers had 1-2.
Is this a wrong approach from Makinen or not?

this question is not particularly to mknight,but for everyone.

Imho it was a wrong approach.

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It clearly reflects different approach. Hyundai with Adamo will do everything possible to win, everything. (buy Tanak, rotate drivers, kick drivers every 6 months...).
VW also had a "full commitment" approach though not nearly on the Hyundai level.

Toyota (= Makinen) has more "gentlemens" approach of how it is usually done. "All drivers do full season" (when asked 2 years back) and again reflected this year in Sweden when they let Kalle take points off Ogier.

In long term Hyundai should be more successful.

I definitely recommend everyone to watch SS11 onboard, that stage was totally worthy deciding a world champion.

What a timing for the precipitation to turn into snow! And relatively small section with lots of snow, so I don't blame MSport that much for not getting it to Lappi.

Katsuka has obviously no one ahead of him on the stage so there was some snow, but by Tanak it was like medium-bad. Ogier seems to have by far the worst conditions with slush turning white basically everywhere. After Tidemand it clears a lot and starts to melt (hence top times by late RC2s and even RC4s.)

About that crash location:

Tanak has epic reaction to the surface change, seemingly pushing hard right until two corners before and then he slows down a lot. (maybe had surface chance in notes?, note that Evans didn't crash there yet so he didn't get warning from that)

Evans has "new tar" 2 corners before and 2x shiny while he approaches, yet picks the line on the left (in snow) rather than staying on the cleaned inside. Quite clear mistake tbh.

Ogier is warned so he stays inside, hard to say how it would have ended. However, his drive on rest of the stage is truly worthy of champion.

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Østberg coming to that area is like entering a warzone, first he sees Evans down, then next corner crash-marks on right from Formaux who is parked around the corner. Then further 100m on Tidemands marks into the hill and two corners later prbly Lappis sliding marks.

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Originally Posted by mknight

It clearly reflects different approach. Hyundai with Adamo will do everything possible to win, everything. (buy Tanak, rotate drivers, kick drivers every 6 months...).
VW also had a "full commitment" approach though not nearly on the Hyundai level.

Toyota (= Makinen) has more "gentlemens" approach of how it is usually done. "All drivers do full season" (when asked 2 years back) and again reflected this year in Sweden when they let Kalle take points off Ogier.

In long term Hyundai should be more successful.

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so with ''gentlemans approach'' toyota has lost 2 world championships,while their drivers won the championship.
I wouldnt be satisfied if i was Mr Toyoda.

This year they lost by 5 points, that's all down to random luck really. Last year they lost by 18 points. That comes already from the broken rims in Monte and Corsica...

Hyundai's driver rotation is good for securing starting positions on gravel rallies. Drivers get long breaks but everyone got them this year.

Finally, you can't help noticing how good Dani Sordo has been the two last seasons. All Top 5 results (well, 6th in Argentina 2019) when the car doesn't fail him.

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Originally Posted by mknight

It clearly reflects different approach. Hyundai with Adamo will do everything possible to win, everything. (buy Tanak, rotate drivers, kick drivers every 6 months...).
VW also had a "full commitment" approach though not nearly on the Hyundai level.

Toyota (= Makinen) has more "gentlemens" approach of how it is usually done. "All drivers do full season" (when asked 2 years back) and again reflected this year in Sweden when they let Kalle take points off Ogier.

In long term Hyundai should be more successful.

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I see it slightly differently, in hindsight, Hyundai smartly used their available drivers to get good road order and driver-rally affinity. This was a quite common practice in the WRC and except for the recent period, specialist drivers were normal.

In the long term Toyota is investing in their drivers. And maybe in the long term it will be better to have the complete drivers who will usually beat the specialists. In the Loeb/Ogier era we didn't see many specialists because the regular drivers were so good everywhere. There are very few specialists nowadays that can beat the main drivers even with road position advantage and it doesn't happen always. I think Hyundai pushed to the max and got a bit lucky with their 3rd driver performances, I'm thinking of Sordo especially made max use of his road position in this short year.

Possibly next year it could work as well since there are not so many rallies and there is a long run of gravel rallies in the middle of the year. What if Hyundai brings 3 or 4 drivers in the 3rd car and rotates them for the gravel season so that they always have road order advantage?

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Originally Posted by AnttiL

This year they lost by 5 points, that's all down to random luck really. Last year they lost by 18 points. That comes already from the broken rims in Monte and Corsica...

Hyundai's driver rotation is good for securing starting positions on gravel rallies. Drivers get long breaks but everyone got them this year.

Finally, you can't help noticing how good Dani Sordo has been the two last seasons. All Top 5 results (well, 6th in Argentina 2019) when the car doesn't fail him.

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i see it with different view.
It wasnt luck.It was just Adamos way of managing clever the tools he had.
He hadnt the best car,he hadnt the best drivers,but he won 2 years.
Hats off to him.
The strange (and unforgivable for me) is that Makinen didnt do the same, when he saw how he lost the previous yearwith the same Adamos tactic.

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Originally Posted by dimviii

i see it with different view.
It wasnt luck.It was just Adamos way of managing clever the tools he had.
He hadnt the best car,he hadnt the best drivers,but he won 2 years.
Hats off to him.
The strange (and unforgivable for me) is that Makinen didnt do the same, when he saw how he lost the previous yearwith the same Adamos tactic.

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Not the best drivers? At the start of 2020 it seemed Hyundai would have no competition because they had two of the three title contenders of the past three years. We didn't know how good Evans would be on the Toyota. And in 2019 they had god damn Loeb in the team (who had just won Catalunya in 2018). Besides, the driver rotation was already used in 2018 before Adamo was leading the team (and the same ever rotating line up with Mikkelsen added at the end of 2017)

You can also think what a lucky strike it was for Toyota that Citroen decided to quit (or that Ogier decided to go to Toyota). It would have been a different year now...Neuville+Tänak vs Evans+Latvala?

And indeed to underscore the point, this year Sordo's Sardinia performance along with Evans crash in Monza made the difference for Hyundai, it was only 5 points after all. They played their cards and got a bit lucky I say.

But if you look at the history many times the champion manufacturer had such strategies, for example Peugeot in the early 2000s or Subaru vs Mitsubishi in the late 90s. On the other hand Citroen with Loeb plus Sordo or Hirvonen and then VW with Ogier and Latvala/Mikkelsen didn't care about specialists as their drivers were best anyway.

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Originally Posted by AnttiL

Not the best drivers?

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according to drivers championship points no.Last 2 years best drivers were with Toyota.

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Originally Posted by dimviii

according to drivers championship points no.Last 2 years best drivers were with Toyota.

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Remember that the points don't come just through driver skill...the car must also perform and make it to the finish.