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

carlos is in favor of "simple cheap cars" so the national/local drivers can compete in wrc when it is in town. im IN.
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