Mäkinen: “Prepare properly for 2018”

Announced with great fanfare in January 2015, Toyota's return to the WRC, where the brand has gleaned three world titles among Manufacturers and four among Drivers, (including that in 1994 for Didier Auriol), is looming in six months.

A period which will see an intensification of work within the teams of Tommi Makinen, at the head of the project, who continue the development of the 2017 Yaris on dirt, before continuing later with tests on asphalt.

The Finnish Team Principal, four times world rally champion, returned to the progress of the project and in particular to the thorny question of the future drivers who will be established in 2017.

“We are still talking... Several profiles interest me like those of Neuville, Abbring, Thank you. Hirvonen was on my list, but he prefers to continue in rally-raid, comments the former spearhead of Mitsubishi in WRC. We are following Teemu Suninen very closely. He looks very fast, he is progressing well. We also look at another Finnish hopeful, Esapekka Lappi, as well as Pontus Tidemand (these last three drivers racing in WRC-2 on a Skoda Fabia R5, Editor’s note) »

Tommi Mäkinen also returned to the short-term objectives of his team, which will arrive in the World Championship at the time of a change in technical regulations, with more efficient and visually aggressive WRCs. “We have to remain realistic for a first season which will above all be a year of learning. Everything remains to be built... The plan will above all be to properly prepare for 2018. »

Find our full interview with Tommi Mäkinen and the report of the Rally of Finland, produced by our special correspondent, in issue 2074 of AUTOhebdo, available now in digital version and on newsstands.