Quote Originally Posted by mknight View Post
Both Meeke and Latvala have taken points off Tanak in PS. A lot of times they took points both off him and his rivals but a few times it was from Tanak and not from one of Ogier/Neuville.

At Hyundai Mikkelsen was directly instructed not to push on PS a few times (Sweden, Argentina, Turkey, GB), but also took points off Neuville and Ogier in Sardinia pushing for more manu points by passing Evans.
People keep complaining, especially in Estonia, how Meeke and Latavala keep stealing PS points from Tänak. It did not sound quite right to me so I took a look at the results this year. Both of them have overall "stolen" exactly 0 points from Tänak in PS. Both "stole" 1 point (Argentina and Mexico) and also "gave" him one point in Germany. Btw, both Latvala in Argentina and Meeke in Mexico lost to Ogier only by 0,1 seconds so they were both very close to actually giving Tänak a point overall.

Here is the overall rankings of "Best powerstage supporting teammate so far" I put together:

1. Sordo - Helped Neuville increase gap to Tänak by 2 points.
2. Lappi - Helped Ogier increase gap to Tänak and Neuville by 1 point.
3. Mikkelsen- Helped Neuville increase gap to Ogier by 1 points.
4. Latvala - Did not increase nor decrease gap between Tänak and rivals
4. Meeke - Did not increase nor decrease gap between Tänak and rivals

From here you could argue that Latvala and Meeke are the worst PS teammates. Maybe so, but by a small margin. Overall they have not stolen points from Tänak and you cannot say others are significantly better than them. The gaps are too small to claim who would be the best choice for the future. The bosses will have to use other figures