WRC 2021 • Silly season

[Eli]

The list of Neuville's mistakes under pressure is getting quite long though, basically every single year since 2017 (4 years) he does (multiple) mistakes under pressure that ultimately cost him the title.
2017 - Germany, Spain
2018 - 2 mistakes in Australia
2019 - Turkey
2020 - 2 mistakes here (actually 3, counting the small one on Friday), plus Estonia

I am starting to agree with the people that call him "forever 2nd one"

For sure Adamo has no reason right now not to keep him, but he needs to make sure the cars fits both him and Tanak.
Speaking about Tanak he is still struggling a bit with it on tarmac (as witnessed by never being better than 3rd on stage here).

And that's without mentioning MC & Sweden back in 2017 when the i20 Coupe was the fastest car out of the box and he didn't have any pressure....it was on SSS if you recall...I'm sure Adamo will asses in the overall grand scheme of things once the rally is over tomorrow, still a long 15.5 hours to go until then...

[dimviii]

guys you are talking about Neuville,when it is verified from plenty of drivers,that i20 is a strange/difficult car to drive at least at some rallies.
We are still waiting for a driver to drive it faster with a less ratio of crashes,last 4-5 years.
i am not a Neuville fan,but we have to say the truth.

[steve.mandzij]

guys you are talking about Neuville,when it is verified from plenty of drivers,that i20 is a strange/difficult car to drive at least at some rallies.
We are still waiting for a driver to drive it faster with a less ratio of crashes,last 4-5 years.
i am not a Neuville fan,but we have to say the truth.

Sure, that's true, but he was the one in charge of it's development and, usually, the only one who could really drive it fast.

[dimviii]

Sure, that's true, but he was the one in charge of it's development and, usually, the only one who could really drive it fast.

also we have to remember that he was competing against a car,that everybody who drove it was fast.
Not an easy scenario.
its not easy to win against Tanak and yaris,or against Ogier with yaris.
Yes he has done his mistakes,but i cant find a better one for hyundai till now.

[mknight]

As proven this year, Tanak can score more points with it even while being slower. (using stage wins as reference)

I repeat that I am not saying they should drop him, just don't threat him as n1.

[EstWRC]

also we have to remember that he was competing against a car,that everybody who drove it was fast.
Not an easy scenario.
its not easy to win against Tanak and yaris,or against Ogier with yaris.
Yes he has done his mistakes,but i cant find a better one for hyundai till now.

of course its hard to compete against them (same car or different) but it was possible for him to win the title past years but he lost it because of the reasons mentioned here.

but the talk about dropping him is of course BS....he is one of the best in the series

IMO his mistake/problem is that he has stayed into one team for too long

[Francis44]

Formoux need this seat asap, and with little or no funding M-Sport has to find a way to put him in a car already for 2021.
Im getting serious Sebastien vibes from him.
Not long ago nobody knew him or had heard of him. Right now he is competitive everywhere with what is surely not the most competitive Rally 2 car. He will have trouble being regular as most of the championship will be new to him but I believe he will be faster than anyone M-Sport has currently.

[mknight]

Not long ago nobody knew him or had heard of him. Right now he is competitive everywhere with what is surely not the most competitive Rally 2 car. He will have trouble being regular as most of the championship will be new to him but I believe he will be faster than anyone M-Sport has currently.

Is he? Looking at his times this year on gravel (Sardinia, Turkey, Estonia) he is usually around 3-4 in R5 in speed on gravel, this means slower than Tidemand for example.
How much does the car we don't know, but rough gravel should be one of the better surfaces for Fiesta imo.
Also depends how you define competitive I guess.

I really doubt he would be faster than Suninen next year (if we discount Lappi). Also note my comparison with Tidemand above, on gravel right now they have similar speed and Tidemand really struggled in WRC car.


The reason people now heard about Formaux is first and foremost that he is fast on wet tarmac, and wet tarmac rallies were one of the few being run lately (Monza, Canarias).... he is typically the only Fiesta mk2 and often one of the few on Michelin.

He might become good on other surfaces/rallies, but I just don't see any past results guaranteeing that at the moment.

[PLuto]

Formoux need this seat asap, and with little or no funding M-Sport has to find a way to put him in a car already for 2021.
Im getting serious Sebastien vibes from him.
Not long ago nobody knew him or had heard of him. Right now he is competitive everywhere with what is surely not the most competitive Rally 2 car. He will have trouble being regular as most of the championship will be new to him but I believe he will be faster than anyone M-Sport has currently.

I dont think he need to have WRC seat asap. For me it is still too early.

[mknight]

I see some rumors about Solberg to Toyota (quality = dubious)

Sounds wrong to me for multiple reasons...
- running 6 cars while developing new car in less than a year and with both Rovanpera and Katsuta learning?
- why learn this car when next one in 1 year will be quite different (powertrain and centerdif)
- he still needs rally experience on a lot of rallies, learning it with R5 is so much cheaper

Maybe the rumors means that he will be somehow connected/employed by Toyota, not that he will drive WRC with them next year. (Katsuta was "at Toyota" and drove Fiesta R5)