Hyundai WRT

[mknight]

While Paddon is already getting talked about, this is also pretty bad news for Hutunen. The suffering with Hyundai R5 could have paid off in at least getting a drive in a WRC car (even though it's historically not competetive in Finland).


As mentioned by others I also hope this means Breen is considered for GB and maybe Turkey (less likely) or Australia (more likely). If he gets only Finland it might end a bit bad for him.

On the general level I have to again mention that already in November I said that Hyundai should focus more on developing the car and making it work for all surfaces/rallies/drivers instead of swapping drivers all the time. While for Finland bringing in some other driver than Sordo/Loeb does make perfect sense I am not sure if it's a good sign in general.

But there are also signs that they are taking development seriously atm, with Loeb doing the two tarmac testing rallies and supposedly a major upgrade coming before Finland. But as early as after Finland and Germany we should have an answer on how the development work went.

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Another thing to consider: Loeb will do only one more event, meaning it's either Germany or Spain. Would Breen then do the remaining one of them alongside Sordo?

Clearly with Breen getting in the mix it is much less likely that Loeb will do GB or some other gravel rally. The 2 tarmac rallies he is doing now make it all but certain that he will drive Germany or Spain. He mentioned multiple times he wanted holiday in August so he'll probably do Spain.

In that case I can't see Breen doing Germany instead of Mikkelsen for multiple reasons. He finished behind him in last 2 years, one of them in the same car (2017 C3). As proven by both Loeb and Mikkelsen, i20 is very difficult to adapt to on tarmac, if Loeb couldn't do it over 2 rallies, it's a long shot to think Breen would do it immediately, would also need a lot of testing. Mikkelsen has not driven on dry tarmac this year after all the supposed adaptations of the car on tarmac, only in Monte where he crashed from 3rd, so imo it's very likely he will get to drive on one of the two tarmac rounds.

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EDIT:

To be clear, as I wrote already a month ago Paddon was clearly the best choice to drive in Finland in terms of speed/result. But there seems to have been other reasons at play.

If Paddon is not possible for whatever reason Østberg would be my number 2 pick, but he is somehow employed at Citroen, leaving Breen as good choice (better than Sordo by all means).