2016 Silly Season

[pantealex]

LOEB

I think every team says "welcome" if he is ready to test/drive their machinery

[Simmi]

PSA might be wishing they hadn't put out that Loeb press release. It's still all the same company. Can't see why Peugeot would kick up any fuss about Loeb testing the new Citroen. Isn't it even all moving into one shared facility?


All this said - there's still surely a chance Meeke will sign with Citroen. He's just doing the logical thing and speaking to everyone. Now whoever hires him might just need to open the chequebook a bit wider. It might even mean we see more Citroens on events this year for instance.

[Rally Power]

Meeke Toy join up rumor it's great! A Meeke/Latvala/Suninen line up sounds amazing!

Meeke options in Citro are real short, as PH program seems to be very limited and Maton has already said it loud and clear: he wants Neuville in 2017!

Lefebvre can calmly work into the new car development (probably with some help from Loeb), but there's no way he'll become number one driver in 2017.

Btw, the new overall Citro/Pug/DS motorsport structure it's now complete: JM Finot (former PSA R&D president) will run it; Maton is kept as Citroen Racing principal; the same for Farmin at Peugeot Sport; Pinon (current Maton deputy) takes DS Perfomance leardship.

(In a typically french pompous way, the group motorsport arm it's now called: 'Centre Excellence Sport Automobiles PSA' )

[AndyRAC]

PSA might be wishing they hadn't put out that Loeb press release. It's still all the same company. Can't see why Peugeot would kick up any fuss about Loeb testing the new Citroen. Isn't it even all moving into one shared facility?


All this said - there's still surely a chance Meeke will sign with Citroen. He's just doing the logical thing and speaking to everyone. Now whoever hires him might just need to open the chequebook a bit wider. It might even mean we see more Citroens on events this year for instance.

It's strange. They're both part of PSA, yet sometimes they don't act like it. When it suits them they're almost separate. Loeb was doing the Dakar months ago, then as a Citroen driver, merely loaned to Peugeot. Now Citroen have dropped him, and now he's a signed up as a Peugeot Sport driver. I can only think Peugeot want the 'link' with Citroen to be broken, and aren't best pleased to see him in the other companies car.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Citroen have played 'hardball' with Meeke all along so I dont blame him for doing the same and let them know he is in demand with other teams..
And I dont think he could have done much more to prove himself in 2015.

If Citroen still want Neuville they are welcome to him after his 2015 performances.

[er88]

Citroen have been very silly to not tie meeke down to a contract quickly imo (after confirming they are staying in WRC for 2017onwards). He is the fastest driver in the WRC apart from Ogier and Latvala (i think he has more raw speed atm that Andreas, who is in a better car), but more importantly Meeke is an experienced driver who has tested many cars over the years. Was involved in the DS3 testing, the peugeot and Citreon R5s, the s2000 pug and ofcourse the mini that seemed a fundamentally decent car (which was let down badly by the engine).

Citroen should have given meeke a deal for next year (at least half of the WRC events + testing) and a deal for the 2017 season. After cutting ties with Loeb, who will they have to test and develop?? Lefebvre wont bring anything to the table..
Its more bad management by Yves im afraid. Especially if Citroen expect to come back in 2017 as serious contenders. Matton's hard on for Neuville could be coming back to bite him?

As for Toyota, Meeke and Hirvonen testing the car along with Makinen does sound promising. Finally some good news coming out of that team, after months of uncertainty....

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

[Sulland]

Jonas Andersson confirmed with Tidemand.

Maybe the drivers just swap codrivers?

[Rallyper]

Tidemand needs a more experienced codriver, if Emil is excused. Jonas has done lots more WRC events. Good for Tidemand who´s in charge for a seat at VW in 2017.

[sindroms]

Becs Williams ‏@Becsywecsy
'Regroup' podcast still coming together... Just spoke with Malcolm Wilson... a must listen for all the people convinced that Camilli paid for his drive.
Malcolm also talks about how he got Camilli signed up and what he hopes the Frenchman will achieve. We chat about Elfyn also & whether we'll see him in '16.

Should be interesting !

Hmmm... is Malcolm really targeting to young guns? There was news he asked for Sirmacis phone number...

[Lundefaret]

Yes money and perspective could have a role, especially money

That's what I thought too. I've asked it because maybe there were some more solid source than our intuition but it appears not. Jeez those drivers and co-drivers are so reserved...
I'm still looking for the reason why Mikkelsen stopped with Floene and went with Markkula before going to VW but it's hard to find something...

I was a part of Fløenes split with Mikkelsen, but it didn't turn out the way I expected. So I was also a part of bringing them back together.

Ola Fløene is a very nice guy, but he made some very untachtical interviews in the Norwegian news, he was was some what of a loose canon on deck. I also think he was loosing a little motivation, so he maybe was not the professional athlete that You need to be in a modern professional WRC team. He also made some mistakes.
I (and more with me) contacted the management and said that they should consider to do something with the situation.

The "solution" was one that I did not see coming, the hiring of Markula.
I was almost in disbelief when I heard the first inboard stage with the new pair. Markula may be a very good codriver when speaking Finnish, but he is not close to be fluent in English, so not only did Andreas need to get the pace notes in a foreign language, but read by a man that could not speak it very well.

Because of this Andreas had a low turn when it comes to work with the pace notes, that still hurts his driving. If You analyse Mikkelsens onboards You will notice among other aspects that he is not always consequent when it comes to his actions to the pace notes. A "flat" should be pedal to the metal no mather what, when You start to question if a "flat" is really a "flat", and if You heard the note correctly, You are in big trouble.

I think Andreas pointed this out, but I also think that Markula responded by saying it was Mikkelsen that was the problem. So their working relationship was not good, to put it mildly.
I also pointed these factors out to the team in a thread on the Norwegian rally forum, and I questioned the managements decision to select a codriver that doesn't speak English very good.
I got a lot of flak for that, but I also got a lot of calls from people close to Andreas, that said they where very glad some one said this out loud.

The team pointed out that I was wrong, but then they did what proved that they really thought I was right. They changed back.
Ola had in the mean time found new motivation, and he now was more the professional codriver that is expected, and Andreas and Ola found back to earlier happy days. Very good on them both.

Regarding Mikkelsens codriver in the future, I dont know how many years Fløene wants to continue, and I dont think the management knows either, so they are prepping one of Mikkelsens friends to be a future possible codriver for Andreas.
His name is Anders Jæger Synnevåg.
He started out codriving Bernt Kollevold, who works for EVEN management, in the Norwegian Rally Championship in Kollevolds Ex Petter Solberg Celica ST205. He is currently codriving Ole Christian Veiby in the JWRC.

And now off course Jonas Andersson also is contracted by EVEN management, so this means they have several options if/when Ola Fløene decides to hang up his helmet, or other things should occur.

I think the debacle around Fløenes exit and reentry learned EVEN management a lot about the importance of having a stable of codrivers, and I dont think they want to be in the same situation again. So they have worked very professionally for this not to happen.
EVEN Management has several drivers, but Mikkelsen is whit out a doubt the most important one, so he is always prioritised if something should come up, just like he should be. So dont be surprised if it ends up with Jonas Andersson or Anders Jæger Synnevåg cording Mikkelsen in a few years.