TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRT

[Danny0405]

Appart from him being from Finland and previously driving with them....

The main sporting reason would be that he is better match for switching with Ogier.
Lappi is likely better than Mikkelsen on the fast gravel/snow rallies that Ogier definitely won't do and comparable on slow gravel. He is worse than Mikkelsen on tricky tarmac like Monte or say Northern Irland (if it were to happen) or wet/tricky gravel but Ogier wants to do most of these kinds of rallies himself.

And we can add some other valuable reasons:
- less time outside of a WRC car (he still competed with M-Sport in 2020 whereas Mikkelsen hasn’t been in a WRC car since 2019)
- more convincing outings last year in Rally2 (even if he was in a different position than Mikkelsen) => confirmed by Latvala in interview
- highest development potential as he has around 40 WRC outings (I mean in top class) against more than 75 for Mikkelsen,

Even if I don’t like to see an incumbent WRC2+ERC champion without at least some outings in Rally1 (maybe in a 4th M-Sport car as Red Bull sponsored him a lot, they called him as a backup in Dakar for example).