Silly Season 2020

[dimviii]

i do really wonder if that Neuville tweet was made with purpose to spice things up.

and the longer Hyundai waits with its announcement the crazier the stories go.

Linda Hirvonen
@LindaMartins13
·
27m
Replying to
@BritRallyMedia
and
@HartusvuoriWRC
Yes! And can’t blame you guys! My mistake!
🤦🏻*♀️

[EstWRC]

anybody has access to this ? https://www.autosport.com/wrc/featur...hyundai-switch


thanks

[Katvala]

Now I'm curious how the rest of the drivers out of contract will shuffle about.
I hope Mikkelsen won't be left out/have to do R5 again

Sent from my F8331 using Tapatalk

[er88]

So David Evans with the Meeke to Toyota scoop, Loeb to Hyundai, Kalle to Toyota as 3rd driver, and now Tanak to Hyundai.

Not bad for all the bashing he sometimes gets.

[cali]

Evans has been more right than wrong so I do not understand how much slack he gets here.


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[logic]

anybody has access to this ? https://www.autosport.com/wrc/featur...hyundai-switch


thanks

How on earth did it come to this? How did Toyota lose Ott Tanak? Be under no illusion, Toyota has lost its world champion. Persuasive and charismatic as Hyundai Motorsport director Andrea Adamo is, he shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near Tanak.

Something has gone seriously awry to lure Tanak and Martin Jarveoja away from the best-funded team with the fastest car and the brightest future in the championship. How many other manufacturers have a president clapping and cheering at the side of the road in the way Akio Toyoda does?

Naturally, the positioning of this one depends very much on who you ask, but Autosport knew Tanak was keen to get his future sorted much sooner rather than an awful lot later. He told Autosport as much in Estonia in April. The last thing he wanted was contract negotiations potentially tripping him up in a title fight.

That didn't happen, but the spectre of every second question being about where he would be next year - as summer moved into autumn - played out exactly as he predicted. For months, the service park has been awash with talk of Tanak's overblown and apparently increasingly exorbitant demands for the next two seasons.

We were reliably informed he wanted his own knife, fork, spoon and plate to eat from. And that came after private planes were demanded for him and his family...for all the rallies.

Some of the shorter long-hauls, sure. But not all the rallies.

I've known Tanak his entire professional career and reported on every one of his 105 WRC starts. I've been fortunate enough to meet his family, his parents and his wife Janika. Such demands are outlandish to the point of being laughable. It's not him. Give him a car, some cash and some competition and he's in.


I'm not naive enough to think Tanak hasn't watched with interest as his former team-mate Sebastien Ogier did the big deals and counted the millions coming in and then fancied a little bit of that. Avaricious he ain't. I see him, Markko Martin - the man who has guided Tanak through his entire career - as understanding the worth of a world champion. And then driving a hard and, at times, uncompromising deal.

But wanting his own toilet... on his own private plane, 14 times a year? Nah. The very fact that Tanak has left Toyota is indicative of a breakdown in the relationship. I would stress that the Japanese side of the deal seemed very happy - throughout negotiations - to keep Tanak.

It's at the Finnish-Estonian end that things have apparently turned sour. The seeds of such discontent were sown in the middle of last year, but a greater Japanese influence over the place was thought to be enough to steady the ship.

You would have thought, allied to all the Toyota loveliness detailed above, the fact that Tommi Makinen Racing (Makinen's firm, which runs Toyota's WRC programme) had moved its re-prep base to the outskirts of Tallinn would have been another tick in another box for Tanak. When Autosport looked around it earlier this year, there was a real sense of pride from Tanak over his involvement. That's gone now.

So, does the fault sit firmly with Tommi Makinen here? No. There's fault on both sides.

Tanak has divided opinion inside the team, as some feel he was too quick to criticise them and their work. That's understandable.

But what's more surprising is the inability of these two sides to find common ground and agreement to make sure Toyota's first world champion since Didier Auriol in 1994 stayed put, and with the team for a very long time.

Six months ago, the understanding was that Tanak wanted to tie-up an agreement with the world's biggest carmaker for a good few years. Why wouldn't he? Sources within Toyota acknowledge TMR management dragged its feet over sealing this deal and the time element certainly played its part in the new champion's departure.

Tanak, it seems, simply got fed up with waiting. And, undoubtedly, he struggled with Makinen's approach to running the team he's built himself. If you're looking for precedent, remember Esapekka Lappi, the Finn who walked out on a Finnish team run by a Finn at the end of last season.

Winning the drivers' title should mean sky-high morale at TMR, but's not so, apparently. As one insider said: "You'd have thought winning the championship a round early was something worth celebrating on Sunday night in Spain. Instead, we all just went our own way."

We've got to be careful here. In just the same way that Mitsubishi's Group A Lancer used to be labelled undriveable by all those apart from the man who used it to win four world titles, it would be easy to look into Toyota and criticise Makinen.

But let's not forget, he's a man who won a world championship for Toyota in just his second year in charge. Hyundai has been in the championship since 2014 and is still to win any season-long silverware.

Ultimately, it's the team principal's job to manage his team and that includes man-managing drivers like Tanak.

Tanak has elevated himself to another level in the last two years and he feels the team hasn't supported that rise as much as it might have done.

He's out there, risking his own and Martin Jarveoja's neck and he's suffering power steering problems, alternator issues and the like. Put plainly, he didn't feel loved. At times, he didn't even feel liked.

From Thursday, that's changed. As we've seen through this season, Andrea Adamo's all about the love. It still beggars belief that this has happened, when Tanak-Toyota seemed the likeliest of long-term alliances. But it has.

Writing a piece like this doesn't bring much pleasure. Doubtless, it'll be fascinating to see what's possible with two of the big three competiting in one team.

But at the same time, spare a thought for the hardworking folk at Toyota Gazoo Racing. What might have been... Instead, all that's left is a world champion-sized hole in the team's driver line-up.

[EstWRC]

thanks logic and it was actually quite a sad read.

especially the part about no celebrations on Sunday.

The guy carried the team on his shoulders for two years, and nothing.

[mknight]

End of silly season, Ott in Hyundai from 2020, his Facebook page

I'd actually say that the really silly season begins right now.
Toyota with Latvala, Meeke and Rovanpera is unlikely to have a chance on any of the two championships.
So now let's see who they (try to) get.

[TypeR]

Now everything makes sense.. After Rally Germany Ott and Sordo did armwrestling.. and the bet was ,,winner stays in the team''. Ott lost and here's the result Ott to Hyundai! Interesting times staying ahead

[Eraisik]

Now, as news is official, there is no word about Martin. Is it me or is it actually “cold” looking in this car over last rallies?? (Excluding Catalonia finish ...)
EDIT: it’s me...
In Facebook Martin writes:
What a journey it has been together with TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRC! Forever thankful for those 2 years! Arigato 🙏

But now it’s time to tackle some new adventures together with Hyundai Motorsport from the 2020 season!

Ott Tänak

#Season2020