2023 WRC News & Rumours

[Danny0405]

According to Finnish Magazine Vauhdin Maailma reigning Finnish Champion Mikko Heikkilä has been hired to do the development testing for Toyota Rally 2

Good driver with some good speed, not too much works-oriented (to avoid VW mistake of a too complex car for common client), we can understand the pros of taking a local one but his experience in Rally2 is not that big (3 years and around 30 rallies, still reasonable) and over all, his experience outside Finland (and a couple of Baltic rallies) is extremely weak (less than 5 rallies with no big result).

Probably they will try to target a lot the Nordic countries but they should at least hire a Central Europa or Southern Europa counterpart (especially about tarmac) to have a more versatile vision and there are some interesting drivers not linked to any brand today and with some good Rally2/R5 experience (Nil Solans or Eric Camilli for example); it’s what Skoda did for example with a variety of drivers taken in the test (Mikkelsen, Lindholm) even if they had for sure one lead test driver (Meeke).