Going back to the Toyota scandal in 1995... although it needs to be checked, but Auriol probably didn't have a contract with them for 1996 as he didn't do a single event in a Celica that year. Kankkunen did few rallies, and if I don't recall it completely wrong, those entries were funded by TTE (the ban was evaded by using local Toyota importers as entrants).

As AnttiK7 wrote earlier, that turbo fiasco sent Sainz to Ford. What it also meant, was that Vatanen was left without a seat. It's another thing I need to check somewhere, but I think there were stories in Finnish press at the time, that Vatanen already had a contract with Ford for 1996, but that ofcourse never materialized for obvious reasons.

1996 was a very Finnish-friendly season, as Monte Carlo and Corsica were rotated to W2L events, leaving Catalunya as the only real tarmac event.