Hi, Steemers!
VW pulled out of the WRC at the end of this season, but there is possibility to run '17 car by private team next year. Is there any chance for that? Hardly at the moment. Ogier has a new team for next season - it's M-Sport. He will drive new Ford Fiesta WRC 2017. Latvala is a new driver of "whole Finnish" new Toyota team (along side Juho Hanninen). Andreas Mikkelsen will drive R5 Škoda Fabia at Monte Carlo Rallye in January and he's registered in WRC2 category for that rally.
Who else can run that private team?
Volkswagen board member Frank Welsch admitted the 2017 car could still be seen next season.
VW technical director F-X Demaison said that he had't given up hope of his 2017 miracle. The true is that firm invested large sum of money in development of a new car. They have been testing for whole year.
The problem is that VW wants around 15 million€ for 2017 season to run the new car. What kind of team can pay that sum of money. It must be some Qatar team because Red Bull gave up as their drivers Ogier and Mikkelsen has new deals (as it seems for Mikkelsen-Škoda).ž
Nasser Al-Atiyah was in negotiations with VW but it failed. Nasser will now drive for Toyota in Dakar Rally.
It's not much time left. We all know that car can be homologated only if it will be run for the next season. If not, only some parts of it can be homologated.
Nobody know who will run 2016 VW cars, probably some rich gentlemen drivers will.
Show must go on!
Cheers!