MINI has missed the deadline for official entry into the 2012 WRC series, Autosport reports.
It’s not immediately clear who is to blame for the oversight, but it seems to be the Munich side of the BMW–Prodrive relationship. As you would expect both parties are now desperately trying to come to a new agreement with the FIA to remedy the situation.
A BMW source commenting on the slip-up has said, “We have made two podiums already in the development year, we can’t fail but to be very happy with what we are achieving. There are a few things to talk about and time has beaten us on the deadline, but the cars will be in Monte Carlo—we couldn’t miss the MINI’s return to that rally.”
There is speculation that the BMW–Prodrive relationship is under some stress, this mistake won’t help things greatly. From the FIA’s point of view they would be foolish to cause MINI any long-term pain over this, hopefully, minor drama.
In other news, both Ford and Citroën managed to keep their paperwork in order and are officially confirmed for the WRC in 2012.
[Source: Autosport]
9 replies on “MINI misses major milestone”
Since the WRC is oversubscribed and in a crazily healthy state, also that Prodrive have absolutely no history or ‘pull’, MINI-BMW have not a snow flake’s chance….
Uh, KGB, didn’t prodrive run the Subaru WRC team?
ROFL!!
How can you screw that shit up!?
It’s not the first time in the history of top echelon motorsport to miss the entry deadline! Of course FIA will allow it.
LOL permission to say cock!
Reminds me of the yellow pages ad … “Not happy Jan!”
Surely it is not just an oversight. You would think WRC would have been ringing up asking where the entry is??
Kent, got sarcasm ?
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