WRC 2017 the hunt for the seat! As speculated, Sebastien Ogier flew immediately back to Europe after the culmination of the 2016 season fina...
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| WRC 2017 the hunt for the seat! |
As speculated, Sebastien Ogier flew immediately back to Europe after the culmination of the 2016 season final event of Rally Australia. He & his co-driver Julien Ingrassia also missed the WRC Gala for the hunt of new car for the upcoming, newer cars for 2017 season.
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| Toyota Yaris WRC 2017 during a test |
Toyota Yaris WRC, from the Finnish outfit under the name Toyota Gazoo Racing at the helm of Tommi Makinen was the first of it. He reportedly tested the new WRC car of the lot, at Spain on both tarmac (wet conditions) and gravel roads.
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| Happy Tommi Makinen |
Tommi being an 4-time world rally champ himself, had no confirmation about the signup of the reinging 4-time world champ, but was eager to have him onboard.
"Like I said, we are talking to the drivers, but we didn't make the offer yet.
"The problem we have is for the car availability.
"We will run with just the two cars until the spring time and Juho [Hanninen] will be driving on all of the rallies."
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| Sebastien Ogier & Julien Ingrassia Fiesta'ing a gravel stage |
After a quick testing of the Yaris WRC on wednesday, the duo left towards Cumbria for the testing of MSport's Fiesta WRC weaponry.
With Hyundai almost denying a seat for the driveless world champion in their stable, and Citroen not willing to arrange a test drive without a signed contract, Ogier's wish to test all the 4 cars before making decision were left with just 50 percent of the chances of the next gen WRC car's lineup.
An excited Malcom Wilson, said
"The test went well. The car performed very well all day. I have to say it looked very impressive from where I was watching from, it was great to see Seb in the car."
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| Happier Malcom Wilson! |
"People had told me before how straightforward and easy he was to work with and that's just how I found him," he said.
"I was really pleased with the respect shown from him and Julien [Ingrassia, co-driver] and our guys.
"The car started the test in the same set-up it had been when Ott [Tanak] was driving it yesterday.
"Seb drove it like that, then came back and made some changes - he was keen to see how the car felt when he'd made some specific changes. And the good news was that the sun was shining!"
Ogier & Ingrassia soon left to Hannover, for the season ending party (one last time at) Volkswagen Motorsport.
What a musical chair run-up for the top runner! As they notoriously say, "anything is possible"!
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