Most importantly they hired ogier and loeb retired.
Without ogier they would have won 2 drivers titles with latvala, but hyundai also would have won 2 with neuville.
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And all of this coupled with Mads statements about the R5 car and its shortcomings for Finland have Citroen with a pretty full plate. Especially concerning aero. They have been one of the most conservative in this area and it's not clear why. We know from statements by VW that they also did not think aero would be as important as it has proven to be. It's possible Citroen have their hands so full with just getting the car up to par that they have no time / Jokers left to fundamentally develop it.
On this weeks AR podcast Latvala confirmed the Polo was built around Ogier and it took him a long time to adapt to driving it.
He also said he has big respect for Ogier who was always very fair.
I think if Ogier cant get the C3 right, no-one can. If Citroen dont/cant then they've wasted their money employing him.
With regards to Ogier "getting C3 right".. he was leading the championship going to Sardinia and now is just a bit behind. Doesn't look like a waste of money to me. Anyway we should all be happy he isn't 40 points ahead ;)
Also related saga is the i20 on tarmac, now Loeb has two extra rallies (2nd this weekend) to try to make it work, we'll see how that goes.
Since there’s no news a little something https://t.co/g7FdBu2Ds5
I don't get why he puts Tanak at Hyundai over MSport.
Sure Msport probably doesn't offer much money, but he knows the car, the car has proved that it's fast (Sardinia, Corsica, Sweden, especially Corsica was pretty impressive, might have been even faster than Yaris).
On the other had Hyundai does struggle on a few rallies still (Finland we'll see in two weeks though, tarmac in mid-august) and there now is quite a history of drivers coming in and struggling with the car at times. While he might not make much of Mikkelsen struggling he surely noticed Loeb compared to his C3 time. Last but not least I don't think he would want to be in the same team with Neuville, especially since Adamo might start prioritizing one of them for drivers title very early.... and in the early part of a season Neuville will likely do better since he knows the car much more.
I assume you were not yet following rally in those years?
Ogier was back then already the man who was able to challenge loeb in the same car. He won 5 wrc rallies in 2011 alone, the same as maestro loeb that year. The same amount as latvala in his whole career up to that point.
Latvala always has the same stupid excuses. After 15 years in the wrc he still claims he has to learn how to drive or he has to find the right settings.