“There's
no question of that, no question at all. The team is on its way to
Sweden for the pre-event test as we speak. Mini remains committed to
the programme and to supporting customers. We all want to see the
Mini John Cooper Works WRC out there on the stages and that's what we
will see with Prodrive running the cars on Rally Sweden next week."
said Taylor.
The
MINI World Rally Team is due to begin testing with regular driver
Dani Sordo and Patrick Sandell in Sweden later this week, at least
showing the team will be in Sweden. Financial problems at the end of
last year lead to Kris Meeke being dropped from a 'race seat' to a
test driving role.
Regarding
the money problems, both Prodrive and MINI's owners BMW have been
blaming each other. Prodrive have reportedly been looking for BMW to
spend more money on the programme while BMW have been reportedly
looking for Prodrive to get a title sponsor. Indeed, rumours have
been circulating that BMW are spending an incredible 20 times more on
their works DTM project. The financial agreement between BMW and
Prodrive was that BMW would fund early development and homologation
while Prodrive would source a title sponsor.
News
of VW's, BMW major competitor in the German and world car markets,
big-budget assault on the WRC has reportedly rattled some of BMW's
top brass. Indeed, VW pulled the plug on their very successful
cross-country project to concentrate on the WRC programme.
Reports
of BMW wanting to bring the project 'in-house' have also been doing
the rounds. How well this project would go, however, is unknown as
BMW have never fully supported a rallying campaign. BMW's moderately
successful M3 programme during the Group A era of the late 1980's was
run by Prodrive.
The
MINI WRC Team has been openly hopeful of finding a sponsor after Dani
Sordo's podium on the Rallye Monte Carlo.
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