Welcome to another WRC season, the 42nd season in the history of the FIA’s world rally championship, a year with a lot of changes in the teams and some changes in the cars. The most exciting prospect is the arrival of a fourth regular manufacturer, Hyundai, the second new manufacturer in successive seasons, who have been set a very high benchmark standard to aim at following the impressive arrival twelve months earlier of Volkswagen. Citroen Racing continues to run a WRC team, this time alongside their new WTCC racing team, while Ford is represented once again by the private M-Sport team.
Not for many years has there been such a turnaround of the drivers in the top teams, the only stability being shown by VW who continued to run the new world champion Sebastien Ogier and Jari-Matti Latvala as their lead drivers, and their cadet driver Andreas Mikkelsen in a second-level support team car. With the exception of VW, the whole driver market for 2014 hung in suspense waiting for the young Belgian Thierry Neuville to decide who to drive for. In the end he plumped for the new Hyundai team, who offered a longer term contract with a representative salary, even though their new i20 car had never turned a wheel in anger - and he had never even driven a prototype. It was a bold but easily justifiable decision for the 25 year old, who had driven impressively well in 2013 but who had not yet won a WRC event.
With Ogier, Latvala, Mikkelsen and now Neuville settled, the next big question centred on the plans for a driver even less experienced in the WRC than Neuville. This was the former Formula 1 driver Robert Kubica, whose determination to succeed in this new sport had been amazing in 2013. He presented a major dilemma for Citroen Racing team, who in 2013 had lost the services of Neuville, a driver they had encouraged through difficult days, and who in 2013 had given a similar support to Kubica. In the end Kubica’s primary commercial backer, Lotos, could not work with a rival oil company (Total) who had been a long time Citroen partner and Kubica accepted the chance to run a support championship team with M-Sport. The rest of the line-up fell it place. Mikko Hirvonen went back to M-Sport, with the 25 year old Elfyn Evans as number two Citroen ended up with Kris Meeke and Mads Ostberg with team patron Khalid Al Qassimi entered only for occasional events and Hyundai decided to alternate their number two car between Dani Sordo (who had been strangely dropped by Citroen), test drivers Juho Hanninen and on occasion Chris Atkinson. Welcome therefore Evans and Kubica, goodbye Nasser Al Attiyah (and with him, Qatar sponsorship), Evgeniy Novikov and Michal Kosciuszko.
Welcome to another WRC season, the 42nd season in the history of the FIA’s world rally championship, a year with a lot of changes in the teams and some changes in the cars. The most exciting prospect is the arrival of a fourth regular manufacturer, Hyundai, the second new manufacturer in successive seasons, who have been set a very high benchmark standard to aim at following the impressive arrival twelve months earlier of Volkswagen. Citroen Racing continues to run a WRC team, this time alongside their new WTCC racing team, while Ford is represented once again by the private M-Sport team.
Not for many years has there been such a turnaround of the drivers in the top teams, the only stability being shown by VW who continued to run the new world champion Sebastien Ogier and Jari-Matti Latvala as their lead drivers, and their cadet driver Andreas Mikkelsen in a second-level support team car. With the exception of VW, the whole driver market for 2014 hung in suspense waiting for the young Belgian Thierry Neuville to decide who to drive for. In the end he plumped for the new Hyundai team, who offered a longer term contract with a representative salary, even though their new i20 car had never turned a wheel in anger - and he had never even driven a prototype. It was a bold but easily justifiable decision for the 25 year old, who had driven impressively well in 2013 but who had not yet won a WRC event.
With Ogier, Latvala, Mikkelsen and now Neuville settled, the next big question centred on the plans for a driver even less experienced in the WRC than Neuville. This was the former Formula 1 driver Robert Kubica, whose determination to succeed in this new sport had been amazing in 2013. He presented a major dilemma for Citroen Racing team, who in 2013 had lost the services of Neuville, a driver they had encouraged through difficult days, and who in 2013 had given a similar support to Kubica. In the end Kubica’s primary commercial backer, Lotos, could not work with a rival oil company (Total) who had been a long time Citroen partner and Kubica accepted the chance to run a support championship team with M-Sport. The rest of the line-up fell it place. Mikko Hirvonen went back to M-Sport, with the 25 year old Elfyn Evans as number two Citroen ended up with Kris Meeke and Mads Ostberg with team patron Khalid Al Qassimi entered only for occasional events and Hyundai decided to alternate their number two car between Dani Sordo (who had been strangely dropped by Citroen), test drivers Juho Hanninen and on occasion Chris Atkinson. Welcome therefore Evans and Kubica, goodbye Nasser Al Attiyah (and with him, Qatar sponsorship), Evgeniy Novikov and Michal Kosciuszko.