I was reading in this months Automoblie, that came in the mail today, that Mitsubishi, Citroen, and Peugeot are sitting out the 2006 season. WHAT? So is it down to Ford, Subaru and Hyundai in the WRC? Why are they sitting out? Mitsubishi just unvieled the the Evo IX which natuarally should be an amazing rally car, so why no WRC? The same for Citroen and Peugeot, althought the Saxo and 206 aren't nearly as exciting.

actually, a Citroen privateer team was given factory status, so they do have a factory team. There are privateers running all the chassis from last year and one even podiumed in Sweden, but they're not eligible for manufacturer points.

Mitsubishi hasn't been competetive for the last 5 years, they were wasting money running a factory team.

Peugeot dropped out because it cost too much, as did Skoda.

Costs for WRC factory teams were getting out of hand, Subaru's budget was reportedly running into the tens of millions of dollars. The manufacturers backing out was a signal to the FIA to do something to limit costs in the series.

Ironically, it looks like Ford will win the manufacturer's championship this year, not Subaru.

This year there is no "manufacturers" championship. Instead the FIA have substituted a "teams" championship. So the Kronos Citroen team and OMV Peugeot team for example, are eligible to score points where they wouldn't have been last year. The Kronos Citroen team is effectively a works operation, with most of the mechanics from last years factory team keeping their hand in until the new C4 comes on line next year.

I'm looking forward to the day when the big three of Gronholm, Loeb and Solberg all have bad days and one of the privateers wins an event. :)

I was reading in this months Automoblie, that came in the mail today, that Mitsubishi, Citroen, and Peugeot are sitting out the 2006 season. WHAT? So is it down to Ford, Subaru and Hyundai in the WRC?

Hyundai are back? When did that happen?