Silly Season 2025

[skarderud]

Yes, Paddon should atleast been given an opportunity for good testing and a couple of rallies.
I'm not shure Solberg want to go back to Hyundai, it closely ruined his career last time, the departure wasnt that nice eighter.
If he is in talks with Latvala for something next season, maybe Rally2 and a couple of Rally1 drives, he will taked that one.

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[Backa]

I'm not shure Solberg want to go back to Hyundai, it closely ruined his career last time, the departure wasnt that nice eighter.

I don't think Solberg should be nitpicky, Rally1 is not F1 with 10 teams. Tanak came back to Hyundai so maybe Cyril would convince Solberg to do it too. It makes some sense to invest in new guys as Neuville and Tanak are quite old.

Not big fan of full-time 3rd driver idea, from team perspective I think it's more sensible to find two that are good at different surfaces, although don't see many good tarmac specialists now. And from fan's perspective, I prefer to see two part-time drivers than one full-time as there is enough drivers deserving rally1 seat.

[mknight]

Abiteboul said Hyundai are considering changing to a full-time 3rd driver from next season....

https://dirtfish.com/rally/wrc/hyund...driver-policy/

This also depends on any new points system, but if they go ahead, who would be the best choice ?

I read this as an internal Hyundai policy topic.

Abiteoul kept Lappi in the team after disastrous second half of last year against the wishes of other people at Hyundai. (Lappi's words)

Now Lappi did extremely poorly after 5 months break. While in Sweden the road position in a snowstorm gave him the win, in Poland road position have Mikkelsen an advantage and Ogier and Rovanpera have been benefiting from it on almost all their starts.

Abiteoul is trying to diffuse the issue with the last rally by trying to point to something else.

[mknight]

Yeah, the car is just hard to drive on tarmac, only Neuville can do it. This makes me think that Hyundai has no competitive 3rd driver (and maybe even Ott..) on two last tarmac rounds very important for championship.

Yes, unless something dramatic happens they might lose manuchamps on the tarmac rounds at the end.

Anyone except Neuville misses confidence with it on tarmac. Lappi pushes anyway and ends up crashing often. Tanak drives at 95% behind the other 3-4 fastest and Mikkelsen similarly but behind Katsuta and Fourmaux as well.

[mknight]

I would go for Sordo. He is complete everywhere. Or go a completely different direction and hire some youngster but that turns out to be a pretty bad decision in the past. I don't know what's with Lappi, but he is nothing after that ''Sweden win''. And that rare competitiveness of Mikkelsen isn't enough (and he always fucked that up too). There is Suninen also, but he was tricked so many times by Hyundai, that I wonder what he is doing there.

Sordo is no longer competitive enough in Rally1. On fast rallies he never was in his career which is why he hasn't done them for last 7 years! So he will never be fulltime driver again. On slow gravel he is no longer able to fight for win on speed alone even with road position advantage.

Lappi had full season just last year and it didn't work, starting to get a long list of full seasons that didn't work well. (Citroen 2019, Toyota 2018, not to mention MSport).

Mikkelsen as you said had one good rally (where he got full points for 2nd place on Saturday), but it was also his first gravel since 2019. They will quite surely not give him bigger program next year without some extra good results. Maybe try him in Greece.

Suninen got numerous second chances at both MSport and Hyundai with usually disastrous results (like losing them manu champs last year in Chile). And this year he is invisible in Rally2 while Paddon does quite well.

Fourmaux is the only realistic other option unless Evans leaves Toyota. Hard to say how realistic. Sesks performance put Fourmauxs "great results" a bit into question for me.

[AndersX]

If we look back, then all the evidences show that you can not put young and green drivers in full 14 round, all a around season - it had worked almost never. Thus all the young guns must share a car with someone and build up experience.

Pajari is locked in Toyota - Latvala had been rather direct between the lines; even his comment about Pajaris expectations from Finland point to long term plan ( while Sesks had to all-in to show what he could).

Oliver will have a place in M-Sport, bcs he needs to prove him self being mature for R1 again. Thus I guess that in some strange scenario Oliver would share a seat with Sesks, if both get budgets together. Malcolm will not pay for them.

So, the Hyundai - i would really like to see Paddon back; in the ideal version, he would 50/50 share his seat with Lapi or Mikelsen. And that is it.

Evans will stay in Toyota. The unknown factor - the one who gets WDC might decide to retire - i can imagine Ott saying - 2 is ok; then more places open up.

Should be rather interesting silly season.

[WRCStan]

I can see Evans or Neuville being shifted to M-Sport.

[skarderud]

If Neuville don't win the WDC, do he take another season or just call it a career?
I don't know his contract tho.

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[AndersX]

I can see Evans or Neuville being shifted to M-Sport.

Who would pay for it? Only if Ford goes all-in as they are stating in media ( but they are waiting 2027 rules)

[WRCStan]

Who would pay for it? Only if Ford goes all-in as they are stating in media ( but they are waiting 2027 rules)

Anybody but Ford.