[WRC] News & rumours (part IV) 2016

[Andre Oliveira]

Nasser supported Neuville's rising start. Maybe he can support now Mikkelsen.

[Simmi]

Reading the article I would say Ogier and Latvala (if today's Toyota rumours are true) won´t be driving the VWs, even if things come together.

Surely Ogier would be a massive boost to generating the funding? I would guess if it happens it's very likely he'll go there for a year. But no way to tell yet.

[Rally Power]

Surely Ogier would be a massive boost to generating the funding?

Good point. Most likely his wage won’t be cheap, but there's no better way to get this deal done than having a 4 time WRC champion along.

[bassist]

Good point. Most likely his wage won’t be cheap, but there's no better way to get this deal done than having a 4 time WRC champion along.

Great for the Championship with potentially 5 Manufactures involved, but what a bloody merry go round!!

[danon]

[the sniper]

Surely Ogier would be a massive boost to generating the funding? I would guess if it happens it's very likely he'll go there for a year. But no way to tell yet.

Possibly, but even without Ogier you've got to imagine that a low cost Mikkelsen would have a good shot at the Drivers Championship anyway, saving the millions that'd have to go to Ogier. Would the extra funding Ogier might bring outweigh his extra cost? Maybe he'd agree to a cheaper deal if he knows the 2017 Polo is that much better than the Fiesta...

For the sake of the WRC though, competition wise, I'd still really love to see Ogier go to MSport and Mikkelsen stay with Qatar VW!

[WUff1]

It is possible of course that Mikkelsen didn't want to join Toyota. Or it could just be that he wasn't Finnish enough.

For sure the latter!

[Simmi]

Possibly, but even without Ogier you've got to imagine that a low cost Mikkelsen would have a good shot at the Drivers Championship anyway, saving the millions that'd have to go to Ogier. Would the extra funding Ogier might bring outweigh his extra cost? Maybe he'd agree to a cheaper deal if he knows the 2017 Polo is that much better than the Fiesta...

For the sake of the WRC though, competition wise, I'd still really love to see Ogier go to MSport and Mikkelsen stay with Qatar VW!

I kind of see it from the other perspective - that without Ogier is it really worth all that money from Qatar, Red Bull whoever to resurrect the programme? Why go to all that trouble and then try to cut costs on drivers and potentially not be competitive? This deal would keep a huge amount of his VW colleagues in the WRC so if Ogier is going to take a cut-price deal for any team then it would be this one I think.

[rallyfiend]

Who says Ogier's salary would need to be externally funded?

VW has a contract with him that they're likely to need to pay him out for, so why not just stick him in the car...?

[rage82]

I think Ogier contract with VW is terminated. This is quote directly from autocar.co.uk article about possible Polo 2017 participation: "However, Durheimer confirmed that four-time world champion Sebastien Ogier's contract with VW had been terminated, and said that if a private team raised enough funds to run the cars it would be able to choose who drove them."