Silly Season 2019

[T16]

Scott Martin for Evans then?

Hey, you got it right buddy!!

https://www.wrc.com/en/wrc/news/dece...5--12-12-.html

[Tarmop]

As long as i can remember, there have been privateers, private teams, dealership teams using, specialist drivers etc etc. Times have changed, but money hasn`t.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Also from https://www.wrc.com/en/wrc/news/dece...5--12-12-.html :

"it seems increasingly likely that Swede Pontus Tidemand will join the British squad for 2019."

[deephouse]

Man co-drivers' silly season is even more ''silly'' than of the drivers.

[Myrvold]

So maybe after all, Grönholm in a Yaris.

How do you get that from Barritt to co-drive for Katsuta?

[AnttiL]

How do you get that from Barritt to co-drive for Katsuta?

It was rumored that Katsuta would have done Sweden in a Yaris, effectively taking the possible fourth car seat from Grönholm. Now this hypotethical fourth car is again free.

[dnb]

Not exactly "longer period". When did Neuville pay? (must be before 207 time)

Etc, etc. list of "nobodies" is getting long.

The practice of buying yourself a WRC "factory" seat is cancer Joukhi brough to WRC with Hirvonen at Subaru in 2004 and Wilson was more than happy to embrace since then.

Neuville had big support from Serderidis, this was mentioned when Bergkvist became JWRC champion with Serderidis paying for his season.

[tommeke_B]

Neuville had big support from Serderidis, this was mentioned when Bergkvist became JWRC champion with Serderidis paying for his season.

Bullshit. When Serderidis discovered rallying and did his very first events, Neuville was already driving a world rally car. (Besides that the company of Serderidis (ARHS) was much smaller than it is today.) Neuville was supported by the RACB in the beginning,with some other small sponsors he drove another year in a C2 R2 Max. After that he was supported by Peugeot BeLux, to do the IRC, while still receiving huge support from RACB. After that he went to Citroën to WRC. The main sponsors that got Neuville into the WRC are RedBull and Qatar, I think. I don't think Neuville or his family/relatives ever paid huge money for anything. He got where he is thanks to his talent, work, and thanks to very good relationship towards sponsors, fans and media in his early years.

[Andre Oliveira]

I readed somewhere that Neuville was paying Nasser Al-Attiyah "help". So i guess it was Nasser who helped Thierry.

[denkimi]

neuville was kinda the protegee of al attiyah in the early days of his wrc carreer.
i don't remember the exact details, but either neuville followed nasser to ford in 2013, or nasser has followed neuville.

in any case, back then it was nasser and quatar who supported neuville, and probably payed for his drive at ford.

So many drivers and only a few seats, no team is going hire drivers who haven't proven themselves. It's pretty impossible to find factory backing from junior days onwards so own/sponsor/manager backing is needed.

i would say that there are not enough good drivers to fill in all the seats.

how many drivers would you say have a realistic chance of winning the world title next year? three?