agree 100%
that is my impression too, i have also wrote via pm with some members here,after i was for half a day at his Acropolis pre test.
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Extra cars later in the year maybe (if the Puma proves to be good) but I dont see anyone other than Greensmith paying for one from the start of 2022.
And if M-Sport pay a contract for Breen then I dont see them being able to afford to pay for another driver too.
Breen won't be on that high a salary and Malcolm was very keen to tell us he wanted a top 4 driver, which would've cost millions...
Msport could run Breen, Mikkelsen and Fourmaux for less than it would've cost to sign one of Tanak, Evans or Neuville etc. At this rate Mikkelsen or another decent driver would drive for pennies to get another crack at a full wrc season, but if Malcolm doesn't believe in Andreas (which seems the case), I guess he will just take the money instead from a vastly inferior Greensmith. Even Mikkelsen has mentioned he has a little bit of money, if needed to help save his wrc career....
Gus retaining a seat in any sort of works Fiesta isn't 'instead' of anyone else. Two other seats exist BECAUSE of him, not in spite of him.
The stats before Hyundai maybe?
Always had a bad feeling about this team from things i've heard from many now, some things that would shock you...
https://www.ewrc-results.com/profile...liver-solberg/
As er88 says unless Malcolm Wilson lied about having money for paying top driver (5-8 mil EURO), he could afford all 3 of Breen, Lappi and Mikkelsen for that (next best available drivers).
Sure he might not want to use the money on other drivers. Which then brings us back to the point of MSport being a profit-making business and not a team doing everything for win. Exactly like Suninen just said. That by itself is fine, what is then not fine is the press-releases "pretending" they are doing everything to win. (Recall the recent pre-Greece news saying how Greensmith has shown he "deserves" WRC seat and is aiming to win a stage in Greece.)
What boggles me a bit is Ford position in this. By MSports words Ford is now using lot of money for developing the Puma and then they should be happy with 3rd rate drivers using it?
Another thing is MSports business itself. It is on the start of the model life they have likely the best chance to "sell" the car to other customers (and talents with money, like Suninen before or Gryazin). At this point if they only have Breen to do the promotion it's very risky business. I recently compared it with Citroen 2017 position with one good (but not epic) driver and 2 very inexperienced ones with no results. Add to that that Breen has very little experience on most of the rallies.
(Almost) year ago when it was announced Solberg goes to Hyundai I was very skeptical here about it (the post it still here).
Because of the way they threated their drivers recently, most notably Huttunen who basically got his career destroyed by Hyundai and because of the lack of performance of the I20 R5. Since then Huttunen has been threated even worse and the new car is mediocre at best.
Also strange that M-sport are not investing heavily in their Rally 2 car, should be their most selling car in their range looking at national/ ERC series but this is not the case, and can`t blame customers for not buying as it seems to be behind the competitors especially on gravel.