Vatanen was already driving a "private" Ford in 1980 and 1981, prepared by David Sutton's team, Ford works team left at the end of 1979. Although David Sutton might have had some support from Ford, of that I'm not sure.
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Rumor has it Ford was helping Sutton, but did not want to go all in. They did however continue to post any victories on their Twitter account :D
couple of days past the Tänak announcement now and since Ott cant talk about it before the season end then estonian media has interviewed his father and his longtime sponsor Gross a lot.
They say the decision was very very hard to make for Ott and didnt come easily because he has been with the team for a long time and knows everybody but it is time to move on. Also there is some talk that this year when some new parts came then those parts went to Ogier and Tänak got them later. This was also confirmed by Tänak some weeks on Q&A chat.
im not sure but i think one article (there was a lot of articles)mentioned that Tänaks technical feedback is also rated highly, especially after seeing how good the Fiesta has turned for this year.
While he did very good this year, especially considering the 2016 disaster and have been applauding him for that since Portugal it does not convince me enough to claim he is capable of beating Ogier. What ifs are what ifs, if he had many points he'd be under more pressure as well. In 2014-2015 there were many rallies where he had a puncture or a problem with the car while the two others never had it. Call it bad karma, bad luck, bad personal engineer or being too harsh on the car. But it's certainly strange that this bad luck seems to continue at Toyota.
Is Hanninen likely to get a call from VW to do the fine tuning testing on the VW R5 Polo?
https://yle.fi/urheilu/3-9893887
Another new interview with Hänninen:
Juho says that while he's disappointed with Toyota's decision, it was nice for him personally to see in Catalunya that he can match the speed of the top guys. He also says that it's highly likely that he won't find a drive for 2018 - M-Sport being the only option. And Juho once again says that he's not willing to pay for a drive. Maybe the most interesting part in the interview is, that Juho says "there's been some talk" about a test driver role in TGR, as "Yaris WRC will be renewed for 2019". He says that if the team really wants him for that role, he'll "give it a thought", but also says that it's "different situation" now vs. when he was the major player in carrying out the demanding test program in 2016, as he knew he would be a race-driver in 2017.
http://www.rallit.fi/latvala-uudesta...t-reilu-jatka/
JML:
Ott is fair and nice guy. It will be a close competition between the three of us. You have to be at your very best. Ofcourse I'm disappointed with what happened to Juho. It would've been nice to see him compete next year as well. Maybe he'll continue as a test driver?
The most important thing (in 2018) is that we can all work together in order to get the best result. You need have competition in the team as well, it just can't get too serious - which I don't think will happen with this line-up.
The most important thing (regarding Wales) is to get back to the form I had in Finland. I feel that the recent technical issues have also contributed negatively in my performance level.