I believe Tänak and Neuville don't come from a wealthy background either.
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I can't recall anyone criticising "Maximum Attack" for not driving quickly enough, but both Burns and Lovell were critcised for "playing the percentages" and settling for points instead of going for wins in British and Irish events. Lovell never got much of a chance at world level but Burns showed that he had the pace with his approach to win at world level. It looks like Chris Ingram's carreer may be like Lovell's and we'll never get the chance to see if has enough pace at world level.
http://planetemarcus.com/saison-wrc/...ri-kenya-2021/
Safari 2021 route announced. Mostly the same as 2020, just some lengths adjusted.
And how about Italian federation who are going to support as many as 11 rally drivers this year?
In the Italian championship:
Fabio Andolfi, Luca Bottarelli, Tommaso Ciuffi, Andrea Crugnola, Damiano De Tommaso, Andrea Mazzocchi, Marco Pollara, Alessio Profeta e Alessandro Re
in Italian gravel championship:
Rachele Somaschini.
in European Rally Championship:
Alberto Battistolli
source:
https://www.rally.it/2021/02/aci-tea...giovani-piloti
"Support" is a very broad term, all those drivers have to bring out their own budget and then ACI will help them a bit. Better than nothing from the federation, but I like more the idea of properly supporting a couple of drivers rather than giving a dime each to 11 drivers...
Not only Loeb, Ogier and Tanak. Of all WRC champions since 1977, you could say that Munari had a good financial background, Sainz was not poor and McRae had some background from his father. But no one else. The rest were middle class guys and some had below average financial resources. Auriol worked as an ambulance driver and the great Walter Rohrl worked as a bishop's driver.
FIA is trying hard to change this with the R regulations that are too expensive for the average young driver. No one can start these days with the budget Sainz needed for his Panda 45 or the budget Tanak needed for his Golf MkII. But, spectator's eyes and ears are more powerful than any wallet. You can tell who is at a top level and who is not.
And they'll soon pay the price for the years of that attitude prevailing. An irrelevant sport of old boys playing with dirty old cars that has few friends or supporters in modern Britain, particularly amongst forestry environmentalist types and local politicians...
This probably deserves a separate thread: Hannu Mikkola died last night, aged 79. Rally in Peace