The final championship positions were pretty much sewn up before Wales - SebO was already crowned Drivers Champion, Jari-Matti was in a virtually guaranteed second place and Andreas, although having a theoretical chance for snatching second from his teammate, was always more likely to bring home the bronze. Another VW Championship 1-2-3 for the drivers. Amazing stuff.
The constructors' contest was something that was still to be resolved in Wales, with Citroen and Hyundai each having a real possibility of grabbing the runner-up spot. In the end, Meeke's second overall clinched it for Citroen despite Hyundai's Sordo and Paddon scoring 4th and 5th positions respectively. That battle added a layer of excitement to the event, keeping the anticipation alive until the last stage of the rally. Wales truly was a classic round, despite (or perhaps because of) the appalling conditions faced by competitors, organisers and spectators alike.
So on to 2016. What changes? What remains the same? What don't we know? The easiest question to answer is "what remains the same?" - so that we look at first.
VW
Cars unchanged for 2016
Driver line-up unchanged for 2016
Hyundai
Driver line-up unchanged for 2016
Citroen
Cars unchanged for 2016
M-Sport
Cars unchanged for 2016
That's about it. So what changes then? Potentially heaps, but many of those changes are firmly in the third category so we'll discuss them there. Meanwhile...
Hyundai
New cars for 2016, two at least for Monte Carlo, and three for the rest of the season with a fourth appearing on selected events in the hands of Kevin Abbring
While the driver roster will remain intact for 2016 - Neuville, Sordo, Paddon and Abbring - the driver ranking will be performance based. Lead driver Neuville will keep his #1 ranking for Monte Carlo and Sweden, but continuation as lead driver will depend on meeting KPIs on those first two rounds. Obviously this would cause changes in rank for the other drivers, depending on driver performance.
RK WRT
Kubica has announced that he won't run as a privateer for a full WRC season in 2016, having reached the conclusion that it can't work.
And that's about it for known changes
What we don't know is quite a lot. So grab a coffee and a comfy chair and check out the following.
Citroen
As discussed in the previous couple of posts, Citroen honcho Matton has yet to announce that the French firm will even be in the WRC in 2017. Next season could well be the last hurrah for the double chevron outfit, so arguably there would be no reason to change the current driver line-up since it would cease to matter.
If, on the other hand, Citroen were to stay in the WRC, then now would be the time to look at procuring the best crews available as soon as practicable, to ensure their human resource would be as strong as their hardware. But that talent will most probably be unavailable until the 2017 season, so that begs the question of whether Matton would bother making any crew changes for 2016 anyway.
However, Matton himself has admitted that he has begun to talk to the drivers who he believes would be his best options assuming a continuation in the WRC past 2016. And that there are at least four drivers in the frame at present. Kris Meeke and Mads Ostberg are certain to be in the mix, particularly after Kris's brilliant run in Wales, and Mads didn't disgrace himself either, their combined efforts thwarting Hyundai from toppling Citroen from 2nd in the constructors' competition.
On balance of probabilities, we can guess that Meeke and Ostberg will be the #1 team drivers in 2016 either way. No, we don't know this, but other options seem rather unlikely.
Hyundai
Michel Nandan has offered Neuville a lifeline, despite the Belgian's horror year with the Korean marque. His displacement to the #2 team for Wales to allow Thierry time to rediscover his pace and confidence has unfortunately not had the result hoped for. After a nervous start and the loss of a wheel due to stud failure, he began to show flashes of his potential with two stage wins in succession, giving both his fans and team a sense of optimism that the 'old' Neuville had returned. Alas, a driver error on stage 12 resulted in a high speed roll which damaged the i20's roll cage and caused permanent retirement from the rally.
In answer to a question at an end-of-day media conference in Wales, Nandan admitted that he was prepared to keep Thierry's rank as lead driver for the first two events of the new season, but that was as much as he would guarantee. So the Belgian needs to quickly find his prior form in order to retain his status with the team. Whether he will be able to achieve that, based on recent events, is unknown.
Another question that has yet to be answered is "Who will be the #2 driver in 2016?" Who indeed... Will the team go for the very experienced Dani Sordo, fast, dependable and unflappable on any surface - despite his acknowledged expertise on tarmac - and with a massive fanbase in Europe? Or will they opt for the fast-improving Hayden Paddon, undoubtedly quick on gravel but also constantly increasing his pace on tarmac?
Actually, there's nothing to stop the two of them rotating depending on the event's surface, with Dani on team #1 on tarmac events and Hayden swapping with Dani on the loose surface ones. Seems like a no-brainer, but we simply don't know. Nobody at Hyundai is talking.
Maybe that decision will be made after Sweden?
M-Sport
Malcolm Wilson again expressed his disappointment with his two WRC crews, this time during the Welsh round at a media conference. While he wouldn't give a direct answer as to who would have seats in the Fiesta WRC cars for next season, he was forthright in his comments about the lack of success they had in 2015 as a team, and was quite blunt in singling out Evans and Tanak as the root cause. In spite of the flashes of competitive pace both drivers have demonstrated over the year, Wilson commented on their inconsistency and seemed genuinely perplexed they hadn't done better.
But that doesn't mean that both will be dropped from the team. After all, both drivers have gained valuable top-level WRC experience, mainly at the M-Sport boss's expense, so there could be a good case there for keeping at least one to get some return on his investment. Who then? Difficult to say - they both have quite separate skills that would clearly be valuable assets for the Cumbrian firm, but neither have the consistency to be obvious picks.
What if a proven, rally-winning driver without a current seat were to come on the market at a bargain price in order to secure a 'works' drive next year? Would that tempt Wilson? And if he could add either Tanak or Evans to the mix, offering the seat but without paying a salary? A mix of experience/success-at-top-level/consistency, and youth/ambition/fearlessness? Might that combo be sufficiently strong to tempt the M-Sport boss?
Hard to know. But clearly the "two young guns" approach, while seemingly the best idea at the time, has transpired to be less effective than expected or hoped for. It's difficult to imagine somebody as pragmatic as Malcolm Wilson choosing another untried resource when he'd already made a serious investment in somebody else. Might that indicate the direction M-Sport will take?
If so, Tanak or Evans? And who might the deep discount top gun be?
On the other hand, both Ostberg and Kubica have been mentioned with regard to being part of the M-Sport arsenal in 2016, with another privateer, one with built-in financial backing perhaps?
Interesting questions...
RK WRT
Robert has flat out rejected the possibility of running his WRT for a full season in 2016, suggesting that he may cherry-pick WRC rounds and mix them up with circuit racing of some type. It's no secret that he's had discussions with people interested in teaming with the Pole to tackle a season of circuit competition, but he has also let it be known that he has unfinished business in the World Rally Championship.
The scuttlebutt from recent days has Kubica in discussion with M-Sport, as discussed above, but also Citroen, so another full season in the WRC seems not to be discounted yet.
FUCKMATIÉ
Flamboyant Italian Lorenzo Bertelli's team is slated for dismantling as of the Wales RallyGB, according to sources near to the FUCKMATIÉ principals. Including his current co-driver, it appears. But Bertelli is another who hasn't finished with WRC yet. While his team may disappear, there seems to be a fair chance that discussions with Malcolm Wilson may see Lorenzo running within an M-Sport B team, financed by the Italian and his family's enterprise.
None of this has been confirmed of course and it is the silly season after all, but it must be pointed out that several well-connected people think this rumour is more fact than fiction and it may well be a sea change to the fortunes of both the Cumbrian constructor and the Lorenzo's WRC aspirations.
So the competition year has passed and the history has been written but there's still quite a lot to be resolved before the new year and time is fast running out for those yet to firm up their options. Citroen's Matton has announced that all their decisions would be made before the end of this month, November, (although deciding and announcing can be quite different things) and if that comes to pass then M-Sport's Wilson will be working to the same timeframe.
Looking forward to their pronouncements...
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