[WRC] Rally Finland 2022

**Sergiow** · 7th August 2022, 13:13

Originally Posted by macebig

Dang it, the Breen/Puma combination surely has potential for something more. They need to patch things together through a rally weekend first though. Hope for better results in Ypres and Acropolis.

The ever thoughtful rallyssimo.it chimes in their take on the actual M-Sport crisis:

"Let's start from Monte-Carlo and the only victory captured by a Puma Rally 1. This victory, corroborated by Breen's third place, has certainly galvanized fans all over the world but could also have given an idea of the competitiveness of the car that it was correct at the time, but it is no longer correct now.

It was in fact the first race of the first Rally 1 championship. Ford had started earlier so it was pretty obvious that he could have an advantage, especially over Hyundai (which barely managed to finish the cars in time to send them to Monaco). But then, the two giants involved in the world championship, Toyota and Hyundai, certainly did not stand by and, race after race, they went to improve the performance of their cars. Can the same be said of M-Sport?"

"Confirming this theory is also the decline in the performance of the other riders in the blue oval who, race after race, find less and less space at the top of the test standings. If that's not enough, the very fact of not having carried out pre-event tests in Finland speaks volumes about the chances that the development of the Puma has gone hand in hand with that of rival cars. ( For example based on Motorsport.com article, ahead of this weekend’s Rally Finland Hyundai conducted three test days at its Finland test base, while Toyota completed four days spread across its four entries near to its Finland-based workshop)

If we take this theory for granted, then even Breen's errors can be seen in a different light. Mistakes always are, but when you're forced to run 110% to keep up with others, you're much more likely to make a mistake and pay dearly for it."

https://www.rallyssimo.it/2022/08/06/wrc-crisi-m-sport-e-davvero-tutta-colpa-dei-piloti/