Silly Season 2020

[T16]

Has there been any new rumors since Evans -> Toyota?

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They may be waiting to suss the Ogier situation before they make any further plans.

[ggg377]

They may be waiting to suss the Ogier situation before they make any further plans.

Budar confirmed Citroen will be continuing in the series.

[mknight]

Is there any better driver to get to Toyota?

And plz dont come with Mikkelsen - his place is wrc2 as age has been shown. Best quote from his midseason stageend interview was something like that : "I need to learn how to drive". And that says everything about that.

What is Evans good side why Toyota might get him? :
Stable than Meeke and Latvala.
Can drive gravel and tarmac rally-is and even win those when god doesnt thing otherwise.
He is right now "Free agent" with some money to Malcolm.
He has pretty good car know-how from previous team(Meeke and Latvala is lacking on that) what helps with some development.
ETC....

Mikkelsen has pretty much exactly same performance as Evans this year and much better historically. In direct fights this year their score is also pretty much even. They have about same ammount of WRC starts (Mikkelsen about 10% more) and are about same age (Evans 1 year older).
Furthermore Evans has never driven any other WRC car than an Msport one (and without checking I don't think he drove a different R5 either). Mikkelsen drove multiple including 3 out of 4 current ones and two current R5s.

So picking between them is certainly not an obvious decision. The WRC2 comment is ridiculously retarded given that Mikkelsen just finished 4th in the championship with highest number of podiums outside of top 3. Beating 4 other drivers who had 3 more starts than him and Evans who did same number of rallies.

Since Toyota didn't win manu champs. I expect a bit more pressure on Tommi to bring new drivers.

[AnttiL]

Mikkelsen drove multiple including 3 out of 4 current ones

Citroen, Hyundai, ??

[mknight]

Citroen, Hyundai, ??

VW 2017, but that is 3 out of 5. Thx

[Katvala]

Citroën is out of the question unless they for some reason decide to run three cars.
Although, it would put them in a good chance for next year to win the Manu title, with Ogier, Lappi and Mikkelsen. Andreas also did well in the C3 in Germany with his second place. And after Ogier retires, I don't see them being near a title for a long time anyway (assuming they remain for more years)



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[mknight]

Unless Citroën gets more money ( say from Abu Dhabi) I think they will just use what they have for development and testing for Ogier.

[Katvala]

Indeed. But it wouldn't be completely out of the picture that they allocated more to the budget for a one off season for a chance at the title, even though it would be tight on money. Another driver could also potentially bring in some money as well..

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[meh]

Few toughts on Mikkelsen vs Evans topic.

Mikkelsen - for me it seems (and it clearly assumption not any fact-based knowledge) that he is lacking master-mind for how to setup car for his style. If setup accidentally (copied from others?) suits him, he is fast, we have seen that. But with those skills you can be in the team no 2 or 3, not have responsibility on no 1 driver.

Evans with mechanic skill in this term is more valuable (does not have limits on that area) in my opinion.

[mknight]

Few toughts on Mikkelsen vs Evans topic.

Mikkelsen - for me it seems (and it clearly assumption not any fact-based knowledge) that he is lacking master-mind for how to setup car for his style. If setup accidentally (copied from others?) suits him, he is fast, we have seen that. But with those skills you can be in the team no 2 or 3, not have responsibility on no 1 driver.

Evans with mechanic skill in this term is more valuable (does not have limits on that area) in my opinion.

This is hard to tell from the outside though.

At Hyundai in 2018, Mikkelsen was supposedly not listened to/allowed to make changes. This year the upgrades for Finland were told to be his work and he was fastest Hyundai matching their best ever result there. On tarmac Loeb is struggling with same issues as Mikkelsen.
What is true is that Mikkelsen has had rallies where he struggled and complained about setup.

With Evans it's really hard to tell, cause as he said he only drove Fiesta (with Ogier in team). Don't think it changed much from last year to this.

So I agree that this kind of reasoing can play a role, but again it's not a clear cut.

IMO Toyotas best choice for next year is to get both, ditch one of Latvala/Meeke and put kalle in 4th car.