2022 WRC News & Rumours

[AnttiL]

Stuff from Kristian Sohlberg's twitch stream

- Neuville blamed his gravel crew driver Bruno Thiry for not marking the gravel in his Ypres crash corner (can someone check what the co-driver says for this corner?) and as a result Thiry god mad and went home before Sunday. And Thiry had been already close to leaving earlier in the season.
- When Breen crashed, the leaders didn't speak to him, just sent nasty text messages. He's being treated as bad as Suninen in 2021 and it seems the intention is to make him leave the team.
- Katsuta is expected to have two podiums this year (regarding the news posted after Ypres)
- Tänak had said about Neuville's "mind games" on Ypres Sunday morning that "I remember this guy called Ogier once tried the same but didn't work then either". The two are reportedly not on that good terms in the team.
- He would have given Gus only 2/10 for reasons that happened after his crash but he didn't want to mention in detail
- Tänak is "for sure not going to Toyota"
- There are strong rumors of crew changes at Hyundai for next year
- Huttunen's engine was leaking(?) oil already in the tests

[wyler]

When he was 3rd driver he could be comfortable in 2nd 3rd 4th 5th behind the main drivers and that was job done.

honestly, this would be job done for m-sport too.
be in the mix for top 5 spots, even constantly P5 if others have no issue -would be rare- that's the value of the package and they know it.

[wyler]

For me, Millener’s story about they only would hire a WDC contender is clearly bs. I don’t really understand how they could hope to hire one with a team not able to make PET everywhere (I precise it’s not a criticism, I understand the financial situation is not simple), with not that much ability of development and whereas all the contenders have a contract for next year. It’s clearly only PR thing: only spot for hiring one will be 2024 at the end of their contract if one has been disappointing with this risk that it’s a declining driver (a bit like Hirvonen comeback in 2014).

And on the other hand, Wilson has always been clear that they are making top-class only as a store front to show they are better than other preparation brand; as they don’t have VW or Toyota money, it’s understandable they cannot compete for a lot of wins but they should be able to compete for at least 3/4 podiums as they did after Ford and Qatar withdrawal in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019 (and we could say they were not that far in 2020); 2017-2018 was a bit special in the next few years.
If they’re not able to do this at least in the next few years (with no more advantage of having prepared the new generation car first), it’s a non-sense to follow in the top-class championship, they should focus to fix the Rally2 car and quit the top class because they’re not winning any money in Rally1 (almost no pure client) and the front store would not be attractive.

IMO, best realistic solution for them for next year is to go for a individual rally strategy and completely forgetting about the global picture championship.
Which means:
- Take back Breen to a role of part-time driver, it’s where he was the most efficient with Citroen and Hyundai, focusing on some events and having even better road positions. Should be possible with Breen outside of top 5 in WDC except if they messed up badly on the contract.

- sharing his car with a guy with not too far RC1 experience who could be able to play one or two podiums with cheap salary (not paying to drive but paid only the minimum): best would be Ogier or Lappi if they are not maintained by Toyota but complicated I think. Else Mikkelsen or Suninen are probably the best shots; would be surprising they couldn’t convince one of the 2 with that type of offers, they have to take risks now to comeback in top class. Ostberg, Paddon or Meeke too risky in my opinion so only other option would be Solberg if not kept by Hyundai

- convincing Loeb of making a 3-to-5-round calendar; don’t think he wants to do more and anyway, he is not anymore the 30-yo Loeb, don’t think he can be efficient in a large calendar as he is making much more mistakes than in the past (hopefully I would say considering his age)

- focusing on one second-tier youngster, probably with some backing, either Loubet, Fourmaux, Huttunen, Rossel or even Lindholm. Theoretically, best would be Loubet as it was the most convincing and he knows the car so lowest learning delay to wait and more probability to take profit fast. In other scenario, Solberg if not kept by Hyundai

- and then, to finish, whoever pays fully for the drives.

For me, it’s the best way they have to optimize the result with something that is in their financial range.

basically it's what they are already doing, apart from rotating breen... but that would loose a paid car in some rounds

breen | rotating breen (loeb would be here?) + x
part-time loeb | //
fourmeaux | second tier driver in development
greensmith | paydriver (greensmith)
x paydrives |x paydrives

and they are the entry with most rally1 in almost every rounds ( in greece has to be 6) paying for just 1 so the rally1 market is not that much of a dead horse, to me.

[flat_right]

Stuff from Kristian Sohlberg's twitch stream

- Neuville blamed his gravel crew driver Bruno Thiry for not marking the gravel in his Ypres crash corner (can someone check what the co-driver says for this corner?) and as a result Thiry god mad and went home before Sunday. And Thiry had been already close to leaving earlier in the season.
- When Breen crashed, the leaders didn't speak to him, just sent nasty text messages. He's being treated as bad as Suninen in 2021 and it seems the intention is to make him leave the team.
- Katsuta is expected to have two podiums this year (regarding the news posted after Ypres)
- Tänak had said about Neuville's "mind games" on Ypres Sunday morning that "I remember this guy called Ogier once tried the same but didn't work then either". The two are reportedly not on that good terms in the team.
- He would have given Gus only 2/10 for reasons that happened after his crash but he didn't want to mention in detail
- Tänak is "for sure not going to Toyota"
- There are strong rumors of crew changes at Hyundai for next year
- Huttunen's engine was leaking(?) oil already in the tests

Just out of curiosity, is there any knowledge where does he get his info? Quite fascinating!

About this "And Thiry had been already close to leaving earlier in the season." - close to leaving the team or leaving home early from a bad rally?

[AnttiL]

Just out of curiosity, is there any knowledge where does he get his info? Quite fascinating!

He works as Greensmith's coach so he spends the rallies in the service parks and hears things. I'm repeating only what he says on a public stream so it should be OK to share them out here.

About this "And Thiry had been already close to leaving earlier in the season." - close to leaving the team or leaving home early from a bad rally?

Close to quitting his job for being treated so badly by Neuville.

[Eli]

Stuff from Kristian Sohlberg's twitch stream


- When Breen crashed, the leaders didn't speak to him, just sent nasty text messages. He's being treated as bad as Suninen in 2021 and it seems the intention is to make him leave the team.

The leaders? Which leaders? Millener?

- There are strong rumors of crew changes at Hyundai for next year

So both Neuville & Tanak out? and Tänak will retire at the end of this year?

[AnttiL]

The leaders? Which leaders? Millener?

Not specified but I suppose he means Millener and Wilson.

So both Neuville & Tanak out? and Tänak will retire at the end of this year?

This wasn't specified in greater detail at all.

[WRCStan]

Stuff from Kristian Sohlberg's twitch stream

- Neuville blamed his gravel crew driver Bruno Thiry for not marking the gravel in his Ypres crash corner (can someone check what the co-driver says for this corner?) and as a result Thiry god mad and went home before Sunday. And Thiry had been already close to leaving earlier in the season.
- When Breen crashed, the leaders didn't speak to him, just sent nasty text messages. He's being treated as bad as Suninen in 2021 and it seems the intention is to make him leave the team.
- Katsuta is expected to have two podiums this year (regarding the news posted after Ypres)
- Tänak had said about Neuville's "mind games" on Ypres Sunday morning that "I remember this guy called Ogier once tried the same but didn't work then either". The two are reportedly not on that good terms in the team.
- He would have given Gus only 2/10 for reasons that happened after his crash but he didn't want to mention in detail
- Tänak is "for sure not going to Toyota"
- There are strong rumors of crew changes at Hyundai for next year
- Huttunen's engine was leaking(?) oil already in the tests

Thiry working for free?
Can't sack both Fourmaux and Breen. Team leader? lol.
Gus - 2/10 after the crash was what? Why say something that equates to nothing?
Crew changes at Hyundai? Thought I'm the only one peddling that shit.

[er88]

I can see the crew change at Hyundai being Suninen. Rotate Sordo and him in the 3rd car, and run Solberg in a 4th car all season.

[mknight]

No, the exact opposite. And Breen's seasson just proves them right. He was supposed to be "the best of the rest" but they haven't really done better this year than with just paying drivers. But with Ogier they got three titles in two years.

Breen has underperformed a lot compared with last year. Last year he was clearly 2nd fast with some hopes for a win on 3 rounds, so for example better than Lappi in his Finland outing (sure much less time in car, but Lappi drove it for two years before). So his level this year should have been around that, given the car is up for it, which it was on Loeb's outings.

At the same time Breen was "risky choice" that was seemingly on the way up. Risky because there was quite a lot of rallies where he had little experience and was never in a position of team number 1 or even 2 before.

On rallies with little experience he did good this year, but probably not much better than expected. It's on rallies with experience that everything seems wrong...

But it is still very far off from paydrivers!
Greensmith/Fourmaux still don't have a single podium in their career. Breen has two just this year, double the points of Greensmith and 7 times as many as Fourmaux.


I think we agree MSport needs at minimum podiums/around podiums to actually attract paydrivers and show the car is competitive. Else they go to others when possible (Loubet and Veiby at Hyundai), or to Rally2 (Gryazin).
"Just paydrivers" are unable to prove that. What kept them in the game somehow in 2019 was Evans that could sometimes be fast (Corsica, GB (bare the issues)), but at that point he wasn't really a paydriver with no results.


For this year MSport had a relatively risky strategy, hoping that Breen will at least stay the same or improve (and charge for championship) and that Fourmaux and Greensmith improve. In a late move they secured themselves with Loeb (still risky given his performance at Hyundai, but free PR anyway).
Loeb proved really good move cause none of the other things worked. Breen is worse than last year, Fourmaux is going backwards (compare with Croatia or Portugal last year), Greensmith is the same (bad).

I agree with what was mentioned that new (money saving) strategy could be to drop Breen on some rounds, basically dialing back to his Hyundai starts, or to use someone else in that role.