Quote Originally Posted by mknight View Post
... on topic:

Every team has a limited number of resources. Be it money, people/hours or homologation jokers.

At some point things get prioritized.

When a driver is winning/taking podiums with the car the teams rarely prioritize using resources on a driver that struggles in a few rallies. Sometimes even out of fear of making the car worse for the driver that brings results. (Ex. Changing the car for Loeb while Neuville is winning with it).

Other examples are Lappi at Toyota 2018, Lappi again at Citroen 2019 (says it took the team half a year to finally make a diff he wanted, for sure was different for Ogier).

I don't believe anyone is doing this "on purpose" to get rid of a driver. But when asked to prioritize there clearly will be multiple levels and there can be personal reasons too.

Right now for example Hyundai would surely prioritize making the car good for Tanak, instead of making changes for Solberg. No need to "want to get rid of Solberg" for that.
The last part is incorrect, no team develops a car for one driver, that makes litterally no sense.

With the first point about priortitizing resources on a driver that struggles, again, its a TEAM and they all share data, they all try each others setups at tests. When you see the end result, its the driver and driver alone, after a PET the driver has a debrief with the engineers before the set up is decided, this is from ramp angles, to damper spec, to spring rates, to anti roll bars, to engine/hybrid maps and the list goes on. When that car leaves service its the drivers choice of set up on that vehicle.