The World Rally Championship’s silly season is already in full swing, and there’s still two rounds of the series to go, in Spain and Japan.
Following a measured drive into fifth place at Rally New Zealand 21-year-old Oliver Solberg has been sacked by Hyundai Motorsport after his two best results for the team, and his third top-six finish this year.
Elsewhere, M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux’s career is in free-fall after he has missed the past two WRC rounds after a series of crashes.
With the rally-winning Ott Tanak unhappy at Hyundai and said to be a very good chance to land at M-Sport next year, it has put the careers of several drivers on tenterhooks.
Hyundai’s excuse for moving Solberg on is that it wants “an experienced and consistent crew at the wheel of our car”, yet that bold call does nothing to foster young talent.
After all, young Oliver was fifth in New Zealand and fourth in Ypres, and while you’d be right in saying that others crashed out, the point is that he didn’t.
In a car that was often technically inept in New Zealand, Solberg did a brilliant job on some of the toughest conditions of the season, never putting a mark on the car.
The decision smacks more of Hyundai being desperate to reignite their WRC manufacturer hopes next season, and in doing so, putting the blame at the feet of a young charger.
The manufacturers’ title is already as good as Toyota’s this year, and with their most successful driver this season, Ott Tanak, already with one foot out the door, the team seems to be madly trying to stop the bleeding.
If Tanak does leave, that leaves only Thierry Neuville on the Korean team’s books as a full-timer, and who replaces the others is a question that is perplexing to everyone.
It’s widely known that Dani Sordo doesn’t want a full program, while other names being thrown around the service park include Andreas Mikkelsen, Elfyn Evans, Hayden Paddon, and even the retired Kris Meeke.
A rally winner at Volkswagen, Mikkelsen was never comfortable at Hyundai in his stint there. Would it be any different this time around?
Elfyn Evans still has a contract at Toyota, and while he has struggled to come to grips with the Yaris Rally1 this year, the Hyundai has been even more inconsistent. I’m not sure that’s a perfect fit for either party.
Hayden Paddon is a chance, but he was dumped by the team at the end of 2018 and never had a good working relationship with Thierry Neuville, while Meeke is surely a driver who has had his day.
As for Solberg, he could land at M-Sport in a privately-entered Puma, but a lot of work would have to go into that before anything is confirmed.
The Ford squad has their own driver problems anyway. If, as is widely rumoured, Tanak heads back to Dovenby Hall, then they have far too many drivers and not enough seats.
Craig Breen is contracted for next year, but what of Gus Greensmith, Adrien Fourmaux and Pierre-Louis Loubet?
Breen’s deal with Ford is locked in for 2023, as is a new co-driver in James Fulton, Greensmith brings good money to the team, and Loubet has been a star during his limited program this year. It all means it doesn’t look good for Fourmax.
All the while, Toyota will be sitting back and watching all the to-ing and fro-ing with great interest. They have the current World Rally Champion locked in, an eight-time WRC winner who has committed to another part program, and a car that is clearly (on results) the pick of the bunch.
Until contracts are signed (or broken), it’s a waiting game for everyone though, meaning the results of the final two rounds of the championship could be make or break for many of the sport’s leading lights.
Comments