Hänninen probably was the best one available for this assignment (2016 testing + 2017 full season). Let's keep in mind that Mäkinen tried to sign Meeke for this role first (atleast it was strongly rumoured), but once he decided to stay at Citroen, Hänninen was the obvious choice.

You don't win the titles Hänninen won (IRC, PWRC, ERC) by accident, so the talent is there. In his WRC drives to date, he's had some quite good (2013 MC, 2014 IT, PL, FI) and some subpar perfomances (2013 FI, 2014 PT, GB), but the "good result" hasn't materialized so far. Let's hope 2017 changes all that.

Let's see what the pace of the Yaris WRC will be... you can say that it looks slow on some videos - it's hard to argue that, but so did the i20 WRC back in late 2013 when the first test videos appeared... I guess we'll have to wait till MC to find out.

For sure Toyota is an underdog for 2017, but if the car is anywhere near its rivals, they're atleast a live dog with Hänninen and Lappi (and whoever the third driver will be).