[WRC] Vodafone Rally de Portugal 2019

[Gevin]

Looks like Gaia Street Stage SS14&SS15 canceled on saturday night.
edit: Oopsie, there is some info on page 5 for it.

[TRW]

It probably can only be Hyundai because only they have "free agents" to use who havent sit out for a long time.
I think abandoning Sordo for Rally Portugal is quite harsh, since as said - allmost home event.

[Gevin]

Well I think there is more change for Sordo than Mikkelsen driving.

[Allez Andruet]

MSport
Suninen (for who?) - As I understand he brings the money to drive the car, so I see this as impossible.

No he does not. But anyway, sure it won't be Suninen who'd be ditched in favor of someone else.

[AnttiL]

Maybe Sordo dropped for participating in the Fafe local rally?

[Gevin]

So Greensmith is driving WRC on portugal?

[Allez Andruet]

So Greensmith is driving WRC on portugal?

That's already been announced earlier.

[er88]

Mikkelsen (for Loeb) - While dropping him for Corsica was logical for multiple reasons, this wouldn't be. Dropping after 1 bad rally (in last 9 months) where he still outscored both Toyotas and just after getting 2nd place ahead of Ogier. Portugal is also much more similar to Arg or Mexico than Chile and he always did good there.

1 bad rally in 9months? He's crashed/retired in Monte Carlo and Mexico, and was embarrassingly slow in Chile. That's 3 bad rallies right away. He's had one good rally this year and one decent/pretty good event at his home rally.

Then he crashed in Australia (bad), GB (underwhelming), was 3rd fastest in Turkey and moved temporarily into the lead before the car broke (good pace, bad result), was terrible in Spain, and if we extend this random 9 months into 10, he was bad in Finland and bad in Germany. It's a really, really poor sequence of results & performances, nobody can deny that. If that was any other driver you'd be slating them considering how closely you like to analyse most drivers and their performances. I just don't think you can see things objectively in terms of Mikkelsen.

Think all the other drivers are out of the equation.
Citroen surely can't drop Lappi this early on his career there. It would be poor management, but we've seen how poor their management has been for years now....

Evans and Suninen are locked in, and Evans is 5th in the championship (2nd of the group behind the top 3).

Toyota won't bench Meeke for driving issues. Had good pace in Monte/Mexico/Corsica/Argentina and could've had much more pts if it wasn't for rim issues and punctures/ car faults and the recce mistake/ a few driver errors. Yet despite all that he is 4th in the championship.
Jari had good pace in Chile after a very poor start to the season - why drop him now after his first real showing of being back on the pace and regaining his confidence. He'd be a broken man if he gets dropped now (you'd be as well dropping him for the rest of year if so).


So it's Sordo or Mikkelsen surely. Fwiw I still wouldn't drop Mikkelsen for Portugal, he'll have a good road position and can have good pace there. However he also can have no complaints if it is him. Agree with your points about Loeb - there's probably better use for him in other gravel rallies where Sordo and Mikkelsen struggle more than they do in portugal. Loeb also hasn't tested I don't think.

But if the GOAT wants to do Portugal, it'll be hard for Adamo to turn him down (especially if the pressure to win a title this year is as big as it's rumoured to be for Hyundai).

[mknight]

You know when writing about Mikkelsen you list all performances where he doesn't finish well = bad. Then you write about Meeke and Latvala who don't have a single good result in 6 rallies and bad results are not so big deal because of a long list of reasons.
So balance and objectivity goes both ways. Either we talk about performance or results but picking one of each is a problem both mine and your posts have.
Also the comment about not dropping Latvala cause he recently had good pace contrasts quite strongly with Mikkelsen recently having both good pace and result.

Anyway all the drivers listed are those that have a bad season (by results) so far, each in their own way and for different reasons. Loeb also fits on that list (4.,7.,8. and 3. is surely a bad season for him), but he is not announced for Portugal atm so that's why he is not listed. Btw. the list originally came from Paddon fans arguing he should come back cause "all these" don't do well.

For the reasons already listed I see it as very strange if anyone gets dropped, especially barely a week before the rally. Can't really remember last time something like that happened.

[EstWRC]

Ohhh yesss, great!

Another topic ruined with this mikkelsen conversation.

Stop it guys. Enough.