Hyundai WRT

[mknight]

Ogier could win in the fiesta, evans couldn't. Tanak can win in the yaris, latvala and the others can't. Neuville can win in the i20, the others can't.
Is it really about the car? Or are mikkelsen and sordo indeed mediocre, and is loeb getting too old?

Evans won in the Fiesta, almost 2nd rally as well. Latvala won 2 rallies in Yaris, including one before Tanak even joined. Lappi won in it as well.

In fact I20 is the only one of the 4 WRC cars that only has 1 driver that ever won with it. Fiesta has 3, Yaris 3, C3 2.

There are cars that fit only some drivers, Mitsubishi Evo gr A with Makinen is the perfect example. Other recent one is Peugeot 307 where everyone except Gronholm stuggled (Martin best reference), seems like Nandan was the main engineer there too.

If hyundai wanted to be sure of the championship, they should have hired ogier or tanak. Their failure to do that and create a dreamteam can only be blamed on themself.

They did hire Loeb, the guy that won the last rally before he was hired. Kicking Neuville and getting Ogier instead in summer 2018 is an interesting idea, but somehow I think Ogier would pick Citroen either way. Tanak was hired when Neuville was dominating (june/july 2017) and at that time still didn't win a tarmac rally.

The cycle here is indeed interesting
2017 -> Sordo and Paddon struggling (each on different events) => hire Mikkelsen and reduce Sordo and Paddon starts
2018 -> Mikkelsen is struggling => hire Loeb, kick Paddon, reduce Sordo (Monte) and Mikkelsen (Corsica) starts
2019 -> ?