Toyota announces WRC plans

[GigiGalliNo1]

Words from Makinen. Hanninen will continue his test driver role regardless.

[tomhlord]

Makinen has said this, two car team in 2017 with a possible third car being entered.

Car being tested now is a Mule, 2015 with 2017 internals.

Evans, Tanak, Lappi, Tidemand and Suninen candidates for WRC drivers in 2017.

Announcement after Rally Germany.

Interesting developments, hopefully it is soon after Rally Germany. To put (a very rough) timescale on the driver line-up to me indicates some progress of late.

[Mirek]

Car being tested now is a Mule, 2015 with 2017 internals.

Clearly isn't.

[GigiGalliNo1]

Clearly Makinen is quoted saying this.

[Mirek]

Sorry but it's obvious that it's not true.

[itix]

Clearly Makinen is quoted saying this.

Clearly you haven't been the most reliable source historically. Sorry for being rude but it's true.

[N.O.T]

Clearly Makinen is quoted saying this.

Why are you doing this to yourself ? You obviously have no clue about the sport in general, is it some kind of mental issue like a compulsive disorder ?

[Allez Andruet]

Makinen has said this, two car team in 2017 with a possible third car being entered.

Car being tested now is a Mule, 2015 with 2017 internals.

Evans, Tanak, Lappi, Tidemand and Suninen candidates for WRC drivers in 2017.

Announcement after Rally Germany.

Where excatly has he said these things? I've been following the Toyota WRC project quite closely from Finnish media (as it's probably been the best source so far) and I haven't come across these kind of statements.

Regarding the driver line-up, Tommi has said that Hänninen is "very likely to be one" (of the drivers) and has mentioned Esapekka Lappi by name as well. Also, it has been said the driver line-up would be revealed sometime after Rally Finland - that can basically mean anything from August to January.

The car obviously isn't 2015, that's quite easy to tell...

[Simmi]

Makinen has said this, two car team in 2017 with a possible third car being entered.

Car being tested now is a Mule, 2015 with 2017 internals.

Evans, Tanak, Lappi, Tidemand and Suninen candidates for WRC drivers in 2017.

Announcement after Rally Germany.

To be fair to Matt all this information came out in Motorsport News this morning. The post would have been more credible if he'd credited the source - rather than vaguely trying to pass things off as his own information.

Regarding it being a mule - Tom Fowler says they are using the current model Yaris as the base car for these tests, with a new model Yaris confirmed in time for next season. He said "it won't be a problem for the new car - underneath it's not so different". It's a 2015 Yaris on the outside, 2017 car inside. So it is a mule in that sense.

Those drivers were all mentioned by Makinen. He also says Hanninen will likely be kept on next year. Mikko Hirvonen is confirmed as joining the test team this week. But Mikko doesn't want a WRC drive.

So it's all true - put the pitchforks down

[Mirek]

Regarding it being a mule - Tom Fowler says they are using the current model Yaris as the base car for these tests, with a new model Yaris confirmed in time for next season. He said "it won't be a problem for the new car - underneath it's not so different". It's a 2015 Yaris on the outside, 2017 car inside. So it is a mule in that sense.

Now I understand that it's two different things mixed together - stock base model and a WRC car. To put it in one sentence like GigiGalliNo1 did make it having a different meaning, i.e. that the test car is 2015 (TMR) car with different stuff inside which is clearly nonsense.