Silly Season 2022

[mknight]

https://dirtfish.com/rally/wrc/green...t-after-spain/

“We know how important having a good co-driver alongside me is,” said Greensmith.

Well this could have come out wrong, but I doubt Greensmiths issues with Elliot were cause Elliot was "bad" co-driver, given the recent record with Mikkelsen.
It was more that he (Greensmith) needed some co-driver to steer him.
Undoubtedly there has been some improvement, but as said before I disagree that it "has shown that Greesmith deservers to drive WRC" on speed/performance alone.

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or because of Evans crashing in Monza, or Ogier's engine blowing in Turkey, or Ogier losing to Neuville by fractions in Sardegna...it's not so simple.

I disagree, what you mention are details that might have made Toyota win anyway, yet they did not even though the were 1-2 in drivers. In way it was Tanaks and Neuvilles issues that almost lost title for Hyundai. (also remember mexico with issues for all 3 cars 2x technical,1 crash). Also remember that Evans had much better results than basically anyone expected before the season.

In direct comparison Rovanpera was supposed to outscore Sordo+Breen+Loeb on their chosen rallies with road position advantage, in his first WRC season. That was entirely impossible.

In the end Rovanpera got just 27 manu points!
Sordo+Breen+Loeb got 81 !!!

Rovanpera did great for first season, but he didn't have a chance beforehand.
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But I find it amusing that people (even WRC journalists) compare Solberg and Rovanpera a year ago. It's like a completely different sport.
As AnttiL wrote on twitter Rovanpera had some 3500? more stage kms in R5 before going to WRC... and a WRC2 title.... and lots of wins.

Rovanpera has had the fastest driver development curve in (recent?) history... and then Hyundai tries to develop Solberg twice as fast.