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.

--------

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.
----

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.

[AnttiL]

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 !!!

The thing with manu points is that the third best driver never gets them. With Hyundai's third drivers getting so much points, it's more of an indication that their first and second drivers got into trouble more often. Rovanperä finished many rallies as the third best Toyota, and in those situations his position was irrelevant to manu points. But it's also true there were rallies where he should have been ahead of some Hyundais, like Turkey, Sardinia and Monza.

[jonkka]

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

In 2020 Manufacturers'?
Rovanpera scored 37 points.
Sordo 40, Breen 18 and Loeb 25 which is total of 83 points.