Quote Originally Posted by mknight View Post
It clearly reflects different approach. Hyundai with Adamo will do everything possible to win, everything. (buy Tanak, rotate drivers, kick drivers every 6 months...).
VW also had a "full commitment" approach though not nearly on the Hyundai level.

Toyota (= Makinen) has more "gentlemens" approach of how it is usually done. "All drivers do full season" (when asked 2 years back) and again reflected this year in Sweden when they let Kalle take points off Ogier.

In long term Hyundai should be more successful.
I see it slightly differently, in hindsight, Hyundai smartly used their available drivers to get good road order and driver-rally affinity. This was a quite common practice in the WRC and except for the recent period, specialist drivers were normal.

In the long term Toyota is investing in their drivers. And maybe in the long term it will be better to have the complete drivers who will usually beat the specialists. In the Loeb/Ogier era we didn't see many specialists because the regular drivers were so good everywhere. There are very few specialists nowadays that can beat the main drivers even with road position advantage and it doesn't happen always. I think Hyundai pushed to the max and got a bit lucky with their 3rd driver performances, I'm thinking of Sordo especially made max use of his road position in this short year.

Possibly next year it could work as well since there are not so many rallies and there is a long run of gravel rallies in the middle of the year. What if Hyundai brings 3 or 4 drivers in the 3rd car and rotates them for the gravel season so that they always have road order advantage?