Silly Season 2025

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Originally Posted by denkimi

That, or Neuville is a fantastic driver.

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To me it seems that Neuville is more comfortable than others in pushing when the car isn't perfect.

Works many times but relatively regularly he also crashes seemingly out of nowhere like Japan or Croatia last year or Ypres before that. Against a very reliable driver like Ogier it has not worked in title fights.

Lappi is similar in being able to push with non-optimal car, but crashes even more to the point of too often. Meeke is even more of that.

Tanak and Sordo are both "feeling sensitive" and Mikkelsen is the extreme version of that again, needing "perfect" feeling.

M-Sport determined to keep Fourmaux after Hyundai rumours...

https://dirtfish.com/rally/wrc/m-spo...yundai-rumors/

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Originally Posted by mknight

To me it seems that Neuville is more comfortable than others in pushing when the car isn't perfect.

Works many times but relatively regularly he also crashes seemingly out of nowhere like Japan or Croatia last year or Ypres before that. Against a very reliable driver like Ogier it has not worked in title fights.

Lappi is similar in being able to push with non-optimal car, but crashes even more to the point of too often. Meeke is even more of that.

Tanak and Sordo are both "feeling sensitive" and Mikkelsen is the extreme version of that again, needing "perfect" feeling.

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To me it has never been a matter of pushing or no pushing with Neuville. Plenty of times we've seen Neuville going flat out for the whole rally, like last year's Mexico, making 0 mistakes and overtaking Evans in the last stage. Other times we've seen Neuville in a comfortable position binning it and retiring.
In my opinion it's his handbrake-heavy driving style, which lately seems to be a bit less needed, that is just a more risky driving style. I can't pinpoint what's risky about it, but maybe it's easier to misjudge certain turns driving like that. I find it more plausible than Neuville "pushing when he doesn't need to".

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Originally Posted by focus206

To me it has never been a matter of pushing or no pushing with Neuville. Plenty of times we've seen Neuville going flat out for the whole rally, like last year's Mexico, making 0 mistakes and overtaking Evans in the last stage. Other times we've seen Neuville in a comfortable position binning it and retiring.
In my opinion it's his handbrake-heavy driving style, which lately seems to be a bit less needed, that is just a more risky driving style. I can't pinpoint what's risky about it, but maybe it's easier to misjudge certain turns driving like that. I find it more plausible than Neuville "pushing when he doesn't need to".

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Yeah but I think that its better this year, just one bigger mistake in Sardegna. Hopefully that was all. He bringed home the points on every rally with difficult conditions. Let's see, I will be cheering for him.. He deserves that first title.

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Originally Posted by CeskyOndra

Yeah but I think that its better this year, just one bigger mistake in Sardegna. Hopefully that was all. He bringed home the points on every rally with difficult conditions. Let's see, I will be cheering for him.. He deserves that first title.

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Hopefully there won't be technical troubles, would be a shame losing the title for unreliability after such hard work...

Fourmaux targets a full time drive in '25 so I dont see him leaving M-Sport...

https://rallyjournal.com/wrc-star-am...ut-his-future/

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Originally Posted by Fast Eddie WRC

Fourmaux targets a full time drive in '25 so I dont see him leaving M-Sport...


https://rallyjournal.com/wrc-star-am...ut-his-future/

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I hope so. Last thing that he needs is third seat on that boinky Hyundai.

Sensible indeed. Would be huge mistake from him to go and drive that undrivable ironing machine.

I absolutely agree. Fourmaux has been doing an incredible job (easily the most impressive driver this season) this season with M-sport and I think he loves where he is at with incredible consistency and the system that is working for him. I would be surprised if he moves to Hyundai as the third driver. Instead, I am wondering who is gonna be the second M-sport driver because so far GMuns IMO has not been very impressive this season. I would love to see Martins but the budget might be a problem for him for a full season.

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Originally Posted by mknight

If Rovanpera drives fulltime I can see Toyota dropping Evans which might make him go to MSport.

Oliver getting some drive sounds reasonable though I am not sure anyone will give him full season since he totally ignores tarmac since Croatia 2023. His lack of experience and historically also performance on tarmac also makes Hyundai least likely imo.

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mknight made an interesting point. While this doesn't sound impossible, Toyota needs a reliable second driver to help KR in 2025. Taka at this moment is definitely prone to errors and not reliable at all, even though Seb is in Tier 1A with Kalle imo, he probably will continue to share the 3rd car (with Sami ?). I know Elfyn lacks some pace this season and I know he is not anymore in the same level with Seb and KR (Tier 1A drivers) but he is generally reliable and brings good points and this is a good quality for a second driver in a team. Therefore I agree with becher that Evans is the one of the if not the most reliable second driver that any team can find.

About Oliver, if he wins WRC2 this year I think he deserves his second chance at the top level. He has been doing a good job this year but like mknight said I don't know if he is going to be a liability on Tarmac with Rally1 or not (he can improve this over time) . He can do okay in gravel and snow. Therefore, if he can drive rally1 next year in the events that he is comfortable (Sweden,Finland,Estonia etc)and brings good results that would boost his confidence and increase his chance to attract attention (like Martins).