Toyota's comeback is essential for WRC's future

On 30th of January 2015, Toyota announced it will make a much anticipated return to WRC in 2017. Cologne-based Toyota Motorsport GmbH will develop Yaris WRC during the next two seasons. The testing, at the moment anyway, will be made by Stephane Sarrazin, Sebastian Lindholm and Eric Camilli.

This is great news for the sport. World rally championship has been a playfield for few teams in recent years. First for Citroën & Ford and now the field is dominated by Volkswagen team. Ford and Citroën are still there but Ford is not a factory team anymore and Citroën has its main focus on WTCC. But there's also Hyundai, a factory team from Korea.

One can guess that Toyota's return was partly inspired by Hyundai team and its comeback to WRC. Hyundai's project has already brought a one-two win, brought by Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo in Germany last year. Toyota and Hyundai compete in Asian car markets and Toyota's return brings the competition to rally roads. The comeback also rises the profile of Toyota brand.

Toyota has a glorious history in rallying. Toyota Team Europe, led by Ove Andersson, won driver's championship with Carlos Sainz (1990 & 1992), Juha Kankkunen (1993), Didier Auriol (1994) and the team won manufacturers championship in 1993, 1994 and 1999. In those succesful years, Toyota developed rallying cars from Celica and Corolla models. Although Corolla WRC was getting out-dated in 1999, the team won the manufacturers championship in its final year. 

Despite this, Toyota had already other plans and it left WRC and moved to Formula 1 - in order to find a bigger arena to showcase its technological skills and raise brand's status. Toyota's F1 project turned out to be less successful: team did not win any race and its best result was 4th place in the championship in 2005 season. Toyota left F1 after season 2009 and since that it has not been involved in high-profile championships, although it has participated, for example, in LeMans 24 hour race and other endurance championships.

Rallying brings Toyota back to its roots. Toyota also increases the profile of WRC: if everything goes well, in 2017 world rally championship will have at least three factory-supported teams: Volkswagen, Hyundai and Toyota. The problem for WRC has been the lack of teams (and the domination of Sébastien Loeb). Now, as Loeb has retired, rallying has been dominated by another Frenchman, Sébastien Ogier. But if the Asian challengers, Hyundai and Toyota, will be able to pose a serious challenge to VW dominance, will the interest and appeal of WRC raise again. And not least because of the return of the iconic rally team.

 

Carlos Sainz & Luis Moya in Monte Carlo Rallye 1999, the first rally of Toyota's last season in WRC, before its comeback 2017. (photo from Wikimedia) 

Monte Carlo 2015

World Rally Championship 2015 begins this week in Monte Carlo. The legendary event will also see the return of Sébastien Loeb and this is by far the most interesting aspect of this year's event. For the first time after a long time we will have two drivers in a same rally who have won the title. Ogier, the only regular title-winning driver of WRC in 2015, will surely see Loeb's challenge as an extra motivation to win, given their tense relationship at Citroën in 2011. 

Volkswagen Polo WRC is clearly the best car of WRC, but the changing conditions of Monte Carlo will level the playingfield. One tyre choise gone wrong can drop a driver from the lead to 8th. The conditions can change during one stage from dry asphalt to snow and propably for the most of the time drivers are on wrong tyres. One must drive with caution and thinking, flat out approach will lead into trouble. One right tyrechoise can also put a drive up on the leaderboard, as for example François Delecour showed in 2011, when Monte was a non-WRC event. The changing conditions and stages at night make Monte Carlo an event which is takes us closer to the old days of rallying when events were long and stages at night were a regular challenge to face.

Besides the French Sébastiens, one can expect to see good preformances from Hyundai-duo Thierry Neuville (although Monte isn't his favourite event) and Dani Sordo (especially if most of the stages are dry asphalt), Brian Bouffier (Ford) and Chris Meeke of Citroën (3rd last year). For Jari-Matti Latvala this is an event in which he should consentrate on finishing in the points, since he is propably the only real challenger for Ogier this year, although the running order regulation will level the playingfield for cars behind Volkswagens.

One to watch is the French legend Delecour, who will participate this year's Monte with  Porsche 997 RGT in his own class, and is surely spectacular to watch - and listen in post-stage interviews.