It's a bit long piece to translate. Mostly the series focuses on nostalgy.
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I guess Tommi is a bit allergic to team orders due to some nasty team orders he received at the start of his Mitsubishi era
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no he wouldnt be idiotic to help collecting points,a multiple champion who paid plenty of millions just some months ago to serve his team.Thats the logic thing.
Rovanpera is still young and must have patience.One or two mistakes doing yearly,is drivers at Neuvilles/Ogiers/Tanak level.
if he is at this level,we will see at year end.
I think it would've set the wrong tone to do team orders this early, to deny a youngster a possible podium on his 2nd ever rally. It was quite historic.
You also had Lappi and Neuville just behind, so would be difficult to implement team orders without Kalle dropping from a possible 3rd place and incredible result, to 6th. Would have been a real downer for him personally to be denied that, and gone against even what Ogier had been saying about team orders. And Ogier arguably didn't deserve team orders, he has to look at himself for being beaten by both team mates despite road position being not too dissimilar.
And lastly - and this is a big leap - but who knows now if Kalle for sure won't be involved in a title fight? He has that much potential and natural ability, that it is now not impossible that he could have a Loeb-like 2003 first full season.
However I do think Adamo would've made the call unlike Tommi, if he was in charge at TGR. Despite how unpopular it might have been.
Rovanpera could enter the final time control (in service after PS) 1 min late and get 10s penalty, extremely easy to do.
After Neuville loudly compared at end of 2018, Hyundai was doing various team order on just about every second rally last year, starting with position switch and no PS push allowed in Sweden.
However, I agree that here there were lots of things around that did no make it an easy choice. If I am a bit harsh I would say that already now Tommi secretly values long-term nursing of Rovanpera over Ogier who is likely gone at the end of the year while Rovanpera is part of his (and Jouhkis) long term plan. Doesn't look like he is particularly fond of Ogier anyway, specially with the "offer" at end of 2016 and the whole process around it.
EDIT: Corrected early/late
Again, Rovanperä should not be put under pressure by these overwhelming comments nor overhyped (tiresome probably to him also:D) . Yes, he has done fine until now, lets wait for it a bit more...there are many examples of doing fine from the start...Suninen and Lappi started of magnificent, but are somehow stuck...mr. Novikov was also great in his second season (but remember, that it was his second season in the series also, without lower classes).
Tommi Makinen reportedly said to Andrew Cowan (his boss from Mitsubishi era, he died in October) something like: "For Toyota I want to be, who you were for Mitsubishi" (and Cowan was to answer: "You won't be, you can't employ such a great driver, as I could"). It seems, that Tommi doesn't follow the way of his mentor, at least not completely. Rally of Sweden, 25 years ago, 1995: Cowan told Tommi not to put a pressure on Kenneth Ericsson (before the last day Ericsson was 1st, probably 1 second, or sth like that, ahead of Makinen). Tommi was irritated. He didn't slow down, before the last special stage of last day had circa 40 of 50 seconds of advantage, and stopped almost at the end, only to present his attitude towards "team order". Well, maybe this is a psychological key (as it was suggested in one of previous posts). Anyway, it is really interesting. I am not sure, what is my opinion about Makinen's way vs Adamo's way. I have no opinion.
By the way: was Andrea Adamo also the professional rally driver (I don't know)?