Silly Season 2020

[er88]

Question is, which drivers will be that arrogant enough to not "not" want to pay to have a seat at M-Sport?

Fact is most can't pay for a full season - £200 000 an event or something like that?

After all these years Jari is rich enough to be able to finance events out of his own pocket, but does he want to do more than 1/2 events that way?

Mikkelsen used to be the rich kid who had it all, but his daddies money dried up ages ago, and he had to come back to the WRC the long way and with a management team behind him.

Msport should be able to run at least one more driver without demanding money, to replace Evans

[Allez Andruet]

After all these years Jari is rich enough to be able to finance events out of his own pocket, but does he want to do more than 1/2 events that way?

I don't think Latvala's too keen on spending his hard-earned money on financing some WRC events, especially as there seems to be quite little to gain. And Jouhki most likely is not willing to do it either.

[AnttiL]

I don't think Latvala's too keen on spending his hard-earned money on financing some WRC events, especially as there seems to be quite little to gain. And Jouhki most likely is not willing to do it either.

Exactly. But I doubt anyone will drive out from own pocket, it would be financed by sponsors. Someone like Latvala has so much of PR value that it should be relativel easy for him or Jouhki to get some sponsors. It's a different thing whether they have too much pride to do it that way again.

[spiderem]

As much as I tend to agree with people saying that kale should have a year of "4th car" with no pressure to learn, on the other hand he also now has the opportunity to do a full season beside Ogier, under pressure. I think that is a good learning option too.
Tanak is the first one to say that his season beside Ogier was extremely valuable.

[Sulland]

Fact is most can't pay for a full season - £200 000 an event or something like that?

After all these years Jari is rich enough to be able to finance events out of his own pocket, but does he want to do more than 1/2 events that way?

Mikkelsen used to be the rich kid who had it all, but his daddies money dried up ages ago, and he had to come back to the WRC the long way and with a management team behind him.

Msport should be able to run at least one more driver without demanding money, to replace Evans

Dont think the money of papa Mikkelsen dried up, but Andreas was told to start learning standing on his own in the bussiness world.

[mknight]

If Toyota does not get anyone else than Ogier, Evans and Rovanpera and if MSport only aims for one drvier besides Suninen and Greensmith it's really the worst case scenario for driver seats.

In that case I think it's between Mikkelsen and Lappi with Latvala a bit distant third option.

Mikkelsen is a known stable fast driver (compared to all others left) with still some future potential. He is 2 years younger than Tanak (at this point in 2017 Tanak only won 2 rallies for example), 4 years younger than Latvala, 1,5 year younger than Evans (with about same number of starts with WRC car) and only 1,5 year older than Lappi.

Lappi has much fewer WRC starts so he can be seen as having more potential for the future. On the other hand he has been quite unstable both in Citroen and also most of 2018 with Toyota. A big potential issue might be his management who doesn't want to "pay", so Malcolms business model might be an issue.

Altogether it's not an easy pick between these two and many details that we might never know about can decide the outcome.

Latvala is a distant third cause he is not stable and lately fast only on very few rallies. Since he is the driver with most starts in WRC ever and also older than others his potential for future development is pretty much exhausted. A big pluss might be Joukhis long business relationship with Malcolm though. In case MSport gets two new drivers it's quite likely Latvala might be one of them.



The others are imo out of the picture:

Breen and Paddon were free last year with much better recent record than this year and were seemingly completely ignored by MSport. Paddon has started at least 2 Hyundai-related projects in NZ so I don't see him suddenly leaving to drive for free at MSport. Breen is very likely to be offered WRC2 season at Hyundai.

Meeke is 10 and 11 years older than Mikkelsen and Lappi with basically no future potential and has been ignored by Malcolm multiple times before. Furthermore his crashing/car damage tendency would just not work at MSport that want to earn money.

[pantealex]

Many of you are ready to accept Greensmith as 3rd driver but not Kalle as 3rd driver.

Weird!

2017 Lappi was 3rd TGR driver without any WRC-car starts before that, do you think Kalle is much slower than Lappi was in 2017 ?

[Norm75]

Many of you are ready to accept Greensmith as 3rd driver but not Kalle as 3rd driver.

Weird!

2017 Lappi was 3rd TGR driver without any WRC-car starts before that, do you think Kalle is much slower than Lappi was in 2017 ?

It's a different business model, m-sport are more geared at making money, Toyota don't need their rally program to make money, they just want titles. 2017 was a year when they weren't expected to perform, so less pressure in running a young driver without previous top category experience, but to answer your question, no I don't believe Kalle will be much slower than Lappi was in 2017.

[er88]

Many of you are ready to accept Greensmith as 3rd driver but not Kalle as 3rd driver.

Weird!

2017 Lappi was 3rd TGR driver without any WRC-car starts before that, do you think Kalle is much slower than Lappi was in 2017 ?

According to Makinen Kalle was faster than Lappi back in 2016 - when they both tested the Yaris !!

However that's not the point really, people are just accepting Greensmith will be in one of the 2 or 3 msport cars because he is paying for it. Plus, Msport aren't fighting for anything.

Toyota on the other hand will be fighting for both titles (or will be trying to).

I don't think anyone is trying to knock Kalle by saying running him in a 4th car would be better for him and Toyota next season. He's a super talent but will still be raw and learning from mistakes

[mknight]

Many of you are ready to accept Greensmith as 3rd driver but not Kalle as 3rd driver.

Weird!

2017 Lappi was 3rd TGR driver without any WRC-car starts before that, do you think Kalle is much slower than Lappi was in 2017 ?

Greensmith is paying (and is not without any talent) and Msport is a business, thats the reality and while we might not like it we can't really change it. This year it was shown clearly by Msport choosing Greensmith over other potential drivers in Finland and Germany.

2017 was "learning year" for Tommi when they only had to show some potential and improvement for the Toyota bosses to be satisfied. Furthermore there were no drivers available until very late after VW left and nobody could be sure how fast Toyota was. (Ogier turned them down)

Now Toyota is one of the two fastest cars, maybe even the fastest, and just got tasked by Toyoda to win both championships. Relying on an 18 year old that never drove a WRC to do that seems rather risky.