The last few days, and on the occasion of publications of the German press, a strong rumor circulated, which wanted BMW Motorsport, to terminate its cooperation with Prodrive, after problems arose regarding the team's budget for the participation of the factory Mini JWC WRCs. In fact, the specific rumors that said the information came from high-ranking figures in the German company, they were talking about announcements tomorrow, Friday 3 February! End, in this particular article, there is talk of direct involvement of BMW, which took over the WRC program in its entirety!
Nevertheless, the head of Prodrive, Richard Taylor, denied these rumours, even expressing his surprise! "This is something I am hearing for the first time. No such issue arises in any case. Right now as we speak, the team is on its way to Sweden, so that we can also carry out the predetermined development tests before the race. Mini remains faithful to its WRC program, but also to the private groups it supports. What we want is to see the JCW WRCs on the special courses, and that's what will happen next week in Sweden".
Can Taylor deny these rumours, but we, for our part, will add that where there is smoke, there is also fire. At BMW there is concern, from the moment that the German VW will be directly involved in the institution and even a huge budget at its disposal. This threat and the direct comparison on special courses is what worries the people at BMW. The German company had guaranteed to finance the car's bond, engine development, with the budget being the responsibility of Prodrive. Nevertheless, because finding strong sponsors proved impossible for David Richards' team, the information states that the British company asked BMW for greater financial support, as a result of which the relations between the two sides cooled down and a series of rumors started that wanted the German company to take over the project entirely. In each case, within the next few hours or days, we will be able to find out if this particular rumor has some truth or not...