Originally Posted by
mknight
Loeb has brought points for himself in every rally he started. Manu points are something different.
For drivers that don't drive whole season team bosses likely want these things:
- manu points (measurable)
- taking points from driver title rivals (measurable)
- putting pressure on rivals (hard to measure, Loeb certainly does put psychic pressure on Ogier, but when he ends behind him in Chile it didn't have an effect in the end)
- publicity (also hard to measure, but Loeb wins that one for sure, from other drivers Meeke does get much more publicity than anyone else because of WRC crew)
Measurable things:
Manu points:
Sordo, took points in 2 out of 3 starts (66%), 6.67 points/rally
Loeb, took points in 2 out of 4 starts (50%), 6.75 points/rally
Mikkelsen, points in 3 out of 5 starts (60%), 7.2 points/rally
So at Hyundai Mikkelsen>Loeb>Sordo
(Sordo retirement due to technical issue in Mexico wasn't his fault though so it's a bit unfair to him)
Comparison with some of the other mentioned drivers is like this:
Latvala 3.33 points/rally
Lappi 6.33 but only out of 2 cars
Meeke 6.33
Suninen 6.0 out of 2 cars).
Mikkelsen>Loeb>Sordo > Meeke/Lappi > Suninen > Latvala
(the top 3 + Evans are ahead of everyone)
Taking points from other driver title challengers:
Sordo, 1 (Mexico Tanak PS ) + 2 (Cors place Tanak), + 3 (Arg Tanak place and PS) = 6 total, 2 /rally
Loeb 0 total, 0 per rally
Mikkelsen 5 total (Argentina Ogier place and Tanak place), 1/rally
Sordo>Mikkelsen>Loeb
Other drivers (counting 0 when they take points off own n1 at the same time), didn't do negative points when they actually help rivals (Meeke helped Ogier for 1 more point in Mexico). There might be an error of +- 1-2 points here somewhere:
Latvala 0
Lappi 4, 0.67 /rally
Meeke 0
Suninen (hard to count since there is no n1 but could say 5 (Cor (Neuville, Tanak) + Arg (Tanak)) => 0.83/rally)
Sordo>Mikkelsen> (Suninen)> Lappi>Loeb/Latvala/Meeke
These are the facts. Certainly these are by far not the only things that matter when picking drivers, but it's interesting that the driver that quite a few seem to think should be fired and never hired by anyone again is ahead of 6 other drivers in manu points and 5 in the "taking points" part.