Quote Originally Posted by Morte66 View Post
Fair point, and I think road position counted for a lot so switching worked. It does seem a reasonable thing to consider, but now that I look at it Hyundai have hired a lot of the obvious people already. Are Mikkelsen/Lappi (with road position, but in an unfamiliar car) so different from Rovanpera who will be in his second year?

E.g. if you could get Sordo for tarmac, sure, but Hyundai has him.
Yeah that's the exact problem. Rovanpera will likely improve, but how much? (maybe you can see after a few rallies?)
How about the rallies that he hasn't really done yet? (not being nominated might reduce pressure on him? or piss him off?)

Some drivers "might" be faster than him, especially when they have road position advantage and know the rally. But on early gravel rallies the road position advantage might not be much.
Mid-season rallies the starting position advantage alone could make a good result, but the list of those drivers that are somewhat stable is short, in alphabetical order: Breen, Lappi, Loeb, Mikkelsen, Østberg, (Paddon), Suninen. (not listing Latvala and Meeke as those
3-4 of those are probably enganged elsewhere (Breen, Suninen, Østberg and Paddon), Loeb might not be convinced to come back again, Lappi left Toyota on unfriendly terms and Toyota never seemed to be interested in Mikkelsen (ref. end of 2016) ...so you suddenly are without drivers to pick.

In either case it would mean complete change of team strategy. Then again Tommi is officially leaving.