The team principal of Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT, Jari-Matti Latvala, says that it is important for him team to have two WRC Champions on their squad considering the new WRC point system and reveals that the ideal would be Sebastien Ogier to participate in all events until the end of this season.
Elfyn Evans and Takamoto Katsuta are the main drivers of Toyota in 2024 as Kalle Rovanpera chose to have a partial programme with them while Ogier extended his limited campaign with the Japanese team for one more year. The eight-time WRC Champion has taken part in five from eight WRC rounds so far winning two times and finishing in second place in three rallies. Rovanpera replaced Ogier in Poland as the last one had a road accident during his recce for this WRC round while it must be mentioned that Toyota changed its initial plan for Rally Latvia and decided Ogier to drive the fourth Yaris there which means that they delayed Sami Pajari's debut until Rally Finland as the young Finn was set to participate in the eighth WRC round. Ogier's next outing will be Rally Finland next week where Toyota will field five Yaris Rally1 cars on their home event in order to take the championship lead from Hyundai. Last but not least, the Frenchman competed with the Yaris in Greece, in Central Europe and in Japan a year ago meaning that he skipped Rally Chile as he had competed only once there when he was driving for Citroen Racing back in 2019.
"The truth is, at the moment, we have done five out of eight", Latvala said about Ogier.
"And with the current points system, it’s honestly nearly impossible to recover big points.
"So the championship deficit is still big points.
"More importantly, we’ve done a great operation this weekend.
"And I will be in Finland, like you know.
"But I can already say that not all rallies are planned up to the end of the year, but you never know.
"Maybe I should keep them thinking that it can happen and then, you know, pressure is on.
"If you look at the performance for these years, if we can have the top guys, you can clearly see here when we come to this event and we have a strong driver line-up, it’s helping in the championship.
"For sure, when you have two world champions in the same team, it’s definitely making the team stronger – the drivers, all the team stronger – and then we have better chances to fight for the championship points.
"And I think in that sense you want Ogier to be driving all the events".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: Toyota
Post a Comment