NO
Printable View
Back to young talented drivers maybe? Loeb, Burns, Solberg, Gronholm, those were young talents, but don't belong in this topic. 20 years ago yes...
@Rallyper why don't you talk about the prestation of Emil Bergkvist in WRC Sweden in stead? No real competition for him but for me he was far more impressive than Veiby (who also didn't have competition in his class). Very fast and tidy driving. :)
Well, some people forget that no other factory team had direct support by manufacturers. I don't want to take anything away from Prodrive and other middle man, but they simply have no chance against Citroen army of engineers.
Although I have no hard proof, I believe no other team except Citroen have invested so much money for WRC development.
That's why I will never accept Loeb as "best of the best". He just purchased his titles with huge support no one else had.
At the height of their success Citroen's annual test budget was equal to Subaru's whole season budget and Citroen had more chefs than Prodrive had engineers. Having said that SKODA was not a small budget team, they had more money under Audi bosses than Citroen and they didn't manage a win.You have to hand it to Citroen they were the ultimate in professionalism. It's the same approach in WTCC, even using some of their test days in having 3 Citroen's crash into each other to replicate racing damage and how that affects the car. aero etc.
Yes, back to topics. No more crying over Loeb and others... ;)
Emil Bergkvist: Tried to mention him here and there. Maybe also on twitter. But yes, heīs one of the coming men absolutely. Doing so good stagetimes in RS and showed also what he can do by winning Adam cup last year(?) in Germany becoming Opelīs factorydriver. Have a look at www.opel-motorsport.com
How about this one?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B-O3DOdIAAIY0O4.jpg:large
Well, that is debatable, I'm not sure how much inferior Burn's Impreza was to the the 206 or Focus. I would say they were close in performance. The Accent and Lancer (still running Group A specs) were possibly inferior.
Anyway just to put your debate into perspective regarding Championship win in inferior car. I think you only need to look at the 1982 season.
Walter Rohrl in a Opel Ascona vs the might of the Audi Quattro. Now that is a championship win in 'not a top car'.