[WRC] News & Rumours 2019

[trykmann]

Despite Meeke's results so far I'm surprised to hear Tommi wants him replaced. Before he went to Toyota he was Kris' biggest shill, going on and on about how he could win any rally and really wanting him onboard.

Tommi is so confusing, and really seems to have a massive hardon for Tanak.

It seems to me, when Meeke was driving the C3 and crashed a lot, then the popular opinion was, that the car not performing enough and he had to overdrive it quite a lot. Now driving maybe the best car, it is clear he just isn't thinking reasonably most of the time.

He definitely has the speed, but he can't transform them to any results. In this rally he had to play the team player role, but instead wanted to fight Tänak. He could easily collect 4. and 5. places, but when he is trying to beat the best drivers, then mistakes start to happen.

[Tarmop]

It's not like you've had to beat everyone on every surface on every rally before you can move up to WRC. It's about the overall picture and the maturity he's shown lately.

Picture is looking good, yes, BUT in those days, without specialist rivers, you have to beat everyone in lower classes, on every surface. There are multiple rallywinners jobless or oing partial seasons because of that today...
And he is young, he has one more than enough and could do it a bit more.


Interesting is, that after todays crash there hasn`t been anything more about it than a small tweet on TGR Twitter. That`s quite odd, though they had 2 excellent podiumplaces to hope and celebrate for and meeke is probably pissed himself... Also Mäkinen probably oesn`t have the heart to too changes in the middle of the season.

[AnttiL]

.

. He still didn't win a tarmac rally with R5 (he did win Spain, but that's more than 1/3 gravel)

But he did beat Kopecky in Rally Bohemia

[denkimi]

The biggest advantage for kalle is meeke and latvala's utter failure this year. He will have to try hard to to worse than meeke.

[Ifox95]

Keith Cronin should be considered for a drive, incredible talent, needs to be given a chance!!!!

[steve.mandzij]

The biggest advantage for kalle is meeke and latvala's utter failure this year. He will have to try hard to to worse than meeke.

To be fair to Meeke, he's been the consistent points scorer Toyota thought they wanted, collecting points from the bottom on all but two occasions. He's been unlucky with punctures mostly, I can't recall him suffering many mechanical failures.

As much as I love Jari he's the one who should be in hotter water, since he's last of the full time drivers, behind even Teemu and Mikkelsen, deposite having his fabled 200+ WRC starts and the speed to go with it. He too has been unlucky, and wise in Finland this time around, but he's got to start pushing for the second half.

[Morte66]

The biggest advantage for kalle is meeke and latvala's utter failure this year. He will have to try hard to to worse than meeke.

Latvala and Lappi have both done worse than Meeke, they both have less points than Meeke after starting the same number of rallies.

I am sure Rovanpera could manage the same, without even trying very hard to do badly...

But I agree, It is a lot easier to imagine Rovanpera in a Toyota now than it was in January, and not just because of his own driving.

[Morte66]

It seems to me, when Meeke was driving the C3 and crashed a lot, then the popular opinion was, that the car not performing enough and he had to overdrive it quite a lot. Now driving maybe the best car, it is clear he just isn't thinking reasonably most of the time.

He has forgotten to be scared of losing his job, like he was at the start of the year. Maybe that will come back now...

[mknight]

To be fair to Meeke, he's been the consistent points scorer Toyota thought they wanted, collecting points from the bottom on all but two occasions. He's been unlucky with punctures mostly, I can't recall him suffering many mechanical failures.

Note that 15 of his 60 points are from PS. At 25% that's the highest rate of any driver. Those don't count for manus.

When you look at the manu points per driver for example here: http://planetemarcus.com/saison-wrc/
Meeke has 44 only 1 point ahead of Latvala. Only driver that is worse is Loeb who also has 4 less starts.

[er88]

Finnish press was wrong last season regarding Toyota and Meeke so it could be again. Rally Finland has 'decided' nothing - especially not this soon after. Easy headlines and articles to write - so although it may end up becoming a truth - take it with a pinch of salt for now.

What is "known", is that Kalle will be in a yaris next year and the deal was done well in advance of Finland. Jari has been there 3yrs now and last season Tommi even admitted he thought Latvala's time was up, before his resurgence in the 2nd half of the year and Lappi to Citroen becoming a thing. To then perform as he has done in the first half of this season again, I don't see how Latvala continues under Makinen unless the Japanese make it so. However the Japanese have so far allowed Tommi run the team however he wants, so it remains to be seen what happens. Tommi has been a bit prickly in the press towards Jari all season as well.

My hunch which could easily be wrong, is that Latvala is already out the door and Meeke remains an open case for now (both could go, but there's no chance both stay). Tanak ofcourse will stay and Kalle has a full season deal.