Silly Season 2019

[mknight]

I took a look at Mikkelsen´s performances this year:

Portugal: power steering problem on day 2, but no good stage times at all

Wales: feeling was missing again, disappointing sixth place

He was 4th in Portugal with not good road position ahead of the whole top 3 finishers before his power steering issues.

In Wales all Hyundais were terrible on friday, he was last of them. On saturday he set 3 fastest times and was fastest driver of the leg. So very mixed performance.

About Turkey (@er88) he was leading most friday ending within 1s of Neuville and Ogier, then as most remember lost driveshaft when leading 40s ahead of Tänak. Yes you could say he could have been faster than Neuville on day 1, but he was 16-35s ahead of everyone else including Tänak. So if you use this for criticism, nobody except Neuville and Ogier drove well.

[mknight]

How about the fact that Sordo and Paddon combined have out scored Mikkelsen ? This despite being in and out due to sharing the 3rd car...

Number of technical retirements for Sordo and Paddon:0
Number of technical retirements for Mikkelsen:4
3rd place in Monte
4th in Portugal
1st in Sardinia, Turkey
Neither appeared to be caused by him.

[er88]

Paddon would have done worse in tarmac rallies and Sordo in fast rallies. Also, they have gotten good starting positions in gravel rallies. So it's a good deal for Hyundai, but not a realistic demonstration of how they would perform in a whole season.

Also, Mikkelsen has been very unlucky in some events but still scored consistent points.

You say that but could Paddon have done much worse on tarmac events this year? Mikkelsen has been the slowest or close to the slowest WRC driver on tarmac this season.

I'd still back Mikkelsen across a whole season over Sordo and Paddon, but the fact it's up for debate is the reason Hyundai are going to lose another manufacturers championship battle. Hyundai (and Mikkelsen) expected him to be up with Neuville as the two strong drivers to pin title hopes on. He's 106 pts behind...

@Mknight. I'm comparing Mikkelsen to his team mate in the same car. Hyundai had a rally winning car in terms of pace in Turkey, yet Mikkelsen ended the opening day behind Neuville who opened the road, and ran 4 cars ahead of Andreas. So yes, that's not exactly something to write home about. It's good in relation to the rest of the his season but not for a driver who wants to be world champion.

I'm not gauging Mikkelsen on the likes of Evans/ ostberg etc who most know aren't going to do anything. Many on here claimed Andreas was a future champion and Makinen was an idiot for overlooking him for Jari, and Andreas himself talked about aiming for the title at Hyundai.

If you want to compare him with the likes of Evans, a young Suninen, Breen etc then yeah he's doing ok and not having a bad season. But he has more expectations on him and rightly so. And in relation to that he's had a poor season. He said himself before poor results in Finland, Germany and GB, that he'd had "a nightmare season". I wonder what he thinks now...

If he doesn't step up his game Hyundai won't be able to justify giving him a full season when Sordo or Paddon sit out half a season again.

[mknight]

@Mknight. I'm comparing Mikkelsen to his team mate in the same car. Hyundai had a rally winning car in terms of pace in Turkey, yet Mikkelsen ended the opening day behind Neuville who opened the road, and ran 4 cars ahead of Andreas. So yes, that's not exactly something to write home about.

.. Makinen was an idiot for overlooking him for Jari

He was a bit worse than Neuville in Turkey with 1s behind on friday. But the argument how bad it was is a bit crazy. If you use the same argument on Tanaks teammates they should both have been fired by now. Ex. in Finland after friday Latvala was 23s and Lappi 1 min behind with better start position.

Mikkelsen has good tarmac record in multiple other cars. But it seems that until Germany this year they (both Hyundai and Mikkelsen) were not really investing much effort into trying to fix the issues. First when Sordo and Neuville also started to struggle (much slower than last year), it looks like something is happening.
Hyundai will like loose the title on Finland + tarmac pace, and I say they deserve it as it's issues they have known off for long time.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Breen wins Rally legend in the Citroen C4.
‏
@CitroenRacing
WINNERS! �� #RallyLegend
https://twitter.com/CitroenRacing/st...70499832897536

Cant harm his chances to get a seat there...

[AnttiL]

You really think Rally Legend showoff helps getting a seat?

[Ucci]

You really think Rally Legend showoff helps getting a seat?

Forgett it....

[wrc2017]

Breen wins Rally legend in the Citroen C4.
‏
@CitroenRacing
WINNERS! �� #RallyLegend
https://twitter.com/CitroenRacing/st...70499832897536

Cant harm his chances to get a seat there...

according to meeke instagram he unoffocially won 7 of 8 proper stages.

[N.O.T]

You really think Rally Legend showoff helps getting a seat?

yes he does... he is that basic.

[Allez Andruet]

https://www.mtv.fi/sport/ralli/uutin...188#gs.cARYgE0

New interview with Latvala (in Finnish). It's funny how he smiles and nods when the interviewer says (when asking a question about which teams will be strong next season) that "Esapekka Lappi is joining Citroen"

Latvala also quite clearly indicates that he will stay at TGR for next season. Not that it wasn't known already but anyway.