Quote Originally Posted by mknight View Post
It's common knowledge, also confirmed by Makinen that he didn't want Ogier and Japan insisted on making him an offer and letting him test.

So Makinen made sure Ogier wouldn't want to join. Letting him drive on the second ever test of the car on tarmac (and first ever on wet tarmac), rather than in Finland where the car was at its best.
Compare that with MSport that put Ogier on their private test track where they knew how to set the car up.
You have to remember the talks at the time, everyone thought Toyota was just a village team and the car would hardly match R5's. Meanwhile M-Sport was known already for making the best cars when new regulations arrive. And Latvala has also said he made big changes to the car when he joined the team, to make it a winning car like it was in 2017.

It's also worth remembering that Toyota didn't aim for wins or titles in 2017 and they didn't expect to be so competitive. It would have been embarrassing for them to have Ogier struggle in their car, (kind of like Citroen in 2019). Meanwhile they were just looking for someone to develop the car and build up the action towards following years, and maybe they felt Latvala is better for communicating in the Finnish team.

But like always, we might never know.