worst kept secret in rallying.
if petter can convince citroen to sell him one of their s2000 cars, i think he's much better off in that than breaking in a new car, even if he's on his own. i'd like to see meeke and atkinson get into wrc next year, so i'd rather one of them get the spot (and the other partner with ken at mwrt) and have petter go it alone again.
wrc definitely needs more makes, though, so this is good no matter who drives it. we saw last weekend the risk of boringness that comes with a 2-make championship. hopefully something will come of toyota and volkswagen looking at the series as well.
I think Atkinson will have a chance with Block from what I have read, as for Meeke, after this year, he won't. Hirvonen turned up in a development car and kicked butt in IRC, and Meeke has crashed at almost every round this year. Wilks may have a better shot if he comes back strong after breaking his back, he is in with Skoda as well, so he could be well placed if they decide to move up to WRC. I don't see Peugeot making the step as Citroen are so dominant and why compete against yourself.
I suspect Petter is fed up with the extra effort of organising his own team, so Prodrive may be his only choice if he doesn't want to retire. With a new format it won't be as hard a step as in previous years. It sounds like the Mini won't do the whole year, so he would have time to have a big input into development. A lot will depend on how long he wnats to keep competing and what effort he wants to make to do it.
It was interesting to see Loeb said last week that he though Ogier should go to Ford for the good of the sport. He was saying that if Ogier is as good as he looks, and picks up where Loeb is leaving off it could force Ford out and destroy the sport. I think Loeb will probably do one more year so he can win the title in the new cars and that will be his lot in Rally, which would be perfect for Ogier at 27/28 to take over.
meeke wouldn't be the best in wrc, that's true, but i think he would stand a chance against some of the mid-packers. we never know until we give him a shot. i'd just like to see him get a chance, like bourdais in f1.
i don't know if petter would be satisfied with a partial season. that might be enough to turn him off. though, come to think of it, with all the names being bandied about for the mini team, petter's has not be said much. he might not even be under consideration. maybe he told them no already. maybe he's too old for their taste.
ogier has looked very good lately, but hirvonen and latvala have had similar times in the past. i'm not ready to crown him. it will be very interesting to see what happens in the power-vacuum after the ear retires, whenever he does.
I would think that would be fantastic for a new team to get someone of his caliber testing and doing some rallies. It doesn't matter at this stage of the program that he does a full season, it sounds like Mini will miss the first 4 rounds anyway. Getting the feedback from a top driver and then having him test it on stage would be a big boost to the team as they won't easily attract a top driver yet.
i like the idea of him testing, but inconsistency at the race seat is usually trouble for a new team. they need to control as many variables as they can, or they'll be chasing their tails trying to find the problems.
I would imagine it's more likely they will only do a limited program anyway, and if not he will just avoid tarmac rounds I expect as gravel was always his expertise, then the team can get a tarmac expert in for feedback like Stephan Sarrazin who they ran in a Works Impreza before. Next year will be a test year anyway and it isn't unusual for there to me different testers for different surfaces. I'm sure Prodrive know what they are doing, they aren't exactly novices at this game. Hopefully with no F1 program to distract them this time they can get back to the front.
dividing along surface lines is a good idea, but it remains to be seen if that's what gronholm wants. i'm guessing he just wants to do a couple events, and schedule them himself.
prodrive aren't novices by any stretch, that's true, but neither was dallara or schumi. and i have no idea how much of their subaru team they've still got on the payrolls and are committing to the mini team. they could have lost them to another team, or transferred them to the aston martin le mans team, which is a distraction for david richards.
but don't get me wrong. i'm excited to see prodrive back, especially with a new make, and i trust they'll get competitive within a few years. i just don't think they should screw around, and maybe gronholm on his own terms isn't worth it.
i heard they're targeting a championship in 3 years. very ambitious, but not out of the question.
I don't see why not, develop next year then on the pace the year after. After that it's all about getting the right driver. If the car isn't at the front after year two chances are it won't be with a top team like that. As far as I can tell the right people are on the project again, the WRC lost it's way when they pulled Lapworth off it to work on F1 last time. I also think the Subaru Impreza was the wrong size when everyone else was moving to smaller cars, hopefully the Mini works well.
i think you're slightly underestimating the difficulty of building a car from scratch to compete with citroen and ford. but i do think it's possible, just not likely.
As I understand it BMW are going to use the Countryman ( a sort of amorphous, vaguely mini-shaped blob) , not the usual mini
right. the bmw mini is too small to meet the wrc regs. image how far off a real mini would be.
(07-28-2010 05:57 PM)frankdouglason Wrote: [ -> ]i think you're slightly underestimating the difficulty of building a car from scratch to compete with citroen and ford. but i do think it's possible, just not likely.
I think they have been working on it for a while already, as I understoon it they were in a position to start basic development without having a manufacturer signed up (I don't know how).
The main advantage is the new rules, they aren't playing catch up on 5 years of development entering now.
The Previous Focus WRC had to be based on the US model to meet the regs as it was slightly longer, it's not uncommon for it to be an unusual model.