Why Toyota wants retro dream team

You are my Solberg, my Petter Solberg. You make me happy, when skies are grey.

It's been a while since the World Rally Championship service park has rocked to that particular Jimmie Davis-inspired beat. Those times could be coming back.

That's right, Petter Solberg might be on the verge of a full-time return to the World Rally Championship. And here's the best bit, he could bring his old adversary Sebastien Loeb with him.

And here's the even better bit for the genuine, die-hard bobble hatters, they'd be managed by Tommi Makinen in a couple of Toyotas. Is there a more perfect rally story, encompassing every aspect of greatness within our sport? We'll have Toyota's history, a Finn, the fans' favourite and the great one. All in one team.

Toyota, you see, can't find a driver to lead its team for next season. The Polo men are all tied down, Kris Meeke chose to spend his next three years with Citroen, leaving Thierry Neuville and Mads Ostberg as the only frontliners without a 2017 seat. But Neuville has already said his future's Korean (Hyundai), leaving Ostberg in an apparently strong position.

Makinen - who was 39 when he retired as a driver - is, however, a man who appreciates vintage (old would seem a bit harsh) as well as the nouveau.

Granted, there would be contractual issues for Loeb with Peugeot, but if the nine-time world champion wants to drive a Toyota Yaris WRC on some world championship rallies in 2017, then that's exactly what he'll do. Makinen has made it clear: there's a car waiting for him.

It's about the same story for Solberg. He's busy defending his World Rallycross Championship title this year and, undoubtedly, he has a bright future in that series, but we can have no doubt that Petter's still got the hunger to come back to the WRC.

And there's a compelling case for Toyota to go down that road. What a tale to tell: two of world rallying's biggest names leading a legend home.

Is Makinen putting together a rally dream team? © LAT

Such a deal would work brilliantly for Japan, scoring no end of column inches and causing previously unseen levels of congestion on rallying's information superhighway. Should it be needed - and I'm not suggesting this to be the case - it could also provide a cunning diversion if the Yaris WRC doesn't explode out of the blocks with a flurry of stage wins in Monte Carlo 2017.

And it would give the world championship back some of its character, charisma and context.

There's been an understandable focus on youth in rallying recently. Look at the interest a 15-year-old Kalle Rovanpera has generated on YouTube, for example. It was the same when Andreas Mikkelsen launched himself headlong into a rallying career just two years the Finn's senior.

But rallying hasn't always been a young person's game. It undoubtedly requires absolute commitment and bravery - both of which are a universal byproduct of youth - but it also commands experience and guile.

Robert Kubica is among the fastest and bravest men in the world, yet he will tell you in an instant that he'd trade a tenth of a second for a decade of downloadable data from driving WRC stages.

You can't learn this stuff. You need to live it.

Just over 10 years ago, Carlos Sainz signed off from an exceptional professional World Rally Championship career aged 43. A few years before that, Colin McRae was forced out by circumstance, aged 35. Illness took Richard Burns away from a category where his future was secure at just 32.

Conversely, Mikko Hirvonen retired happy at the end of 2014, aged 34 while last month a 30-year-old Jari-Matti Latvala made his 157th WRC start.

How times have changed. At Latvala's age, his countryman Marcus Gronholm was starting just his 20th world rally in 1998 and remained more than a season away from his first full year as a factory driver.

Bjorn Waldegaard was 48 when he last stepped from a works car at world championship level. Hannu Mikkola, 50.

Loeb would be almost 43 if he started the Monte with Toyota next year. Solberg, only just 42. There's a strong case for both, just as a 36-year-old Kris Meeke made perfect sense for Citroen's rebirth.

Loeb and Solberg in the same team would be a mouth-watering prospect for fans © XPB

But, what about the future? When Toyota's deal runs out in 2022, it's hard to imagine a couple of 48-year-olds ripping up the place.

How have we arrived in a place where Makinen is genuinely scratching his head over driver selection? The World Motor Sport Council meetings of June and September 2003 are a good place to start.

In June of that year, the FIA laid down the law that three-car manufacturer teams were out of favour. Peugeot's big-bucks approach - which included backing Burns and Gronholm up with a third car for Kalle's dad Harri on the dirt and the sensationally bonkers Gilles Panizzi on asphalt - delivered domination for the Velizy squad. In an effort to level the playing field, the FIA dictated a third car must be used by a driver who hadn't finished on the podium for the last three years.

Peugeot neatly side-stepped this effort to push them down the youth-development road by signing Freddy Loix to partner Gronholm and Rovanpera.

In an ordinary world, Citroen would have been fine. They had an Alsatian youngster in the team, not much experience, but pretty handy. He could be the third man to sit alongside McRae and Sainz. Happy days. Except their Alsatian was more than a bit special and had blown that podium policy two years earlier, finishing second on only his 13th ever start at world championship level.

Loeb was the future, meaning McRae or Sainz had to be sacrificed. The Scot was shown the door.

The fall-out from the June decision was enormous. So, in September, the FIA changed it again - this time around the World Council mandated two-car teams.

Peugeot went bananas. McRae was still out.

Controversial as the June decision was, it was the foundations of something sensible to force manufacturers to develop and nurture talent.

That's part of the reason Tommi's in a bit of a pickle.

Return would be Solberg's first WRC rally since 2012, but wouldn't be long-term © LAT

Another contributing factor has to be drivers paying for the privilege. Meeke is predictably candid on this one. Never was the Dungannon man in a position to foot a multi-million pound bill for a season in a World Rally Car and he's justified in feeling that those who did pay hindered his own arrival at the sport's highest level.

Undoubtedly, pay drivers undermine talent-pool development, but they have been a necessary evil for teams such as M-Sport. Shorn of a title sponsor and left high and dry when Ford walked - even in the years before - Malcolm Wilson simply wouldn't have survived without drivers contributing.

When Subaru chose Hirvonen's dollar over McRae ahead of the 2004 season, a dangerous precedent was confirmed (having been set numerous times before).

Ironically, Subaru's decision did help develop youth - in a way paying millions for the 37-year-old McRae would never have done - but it didn't matter. The balance had been tilted once again in favour of the fat wallet. Admittedly, the global downturn might have played a part here as well...

Fortunately, things are changing again for the better. Volkswagen's run a three-car team since it arrived in 2013 (although quite whether the super-quick and vastly experienced Mikkelsen still counts as a junior driver is debatable); Hyundai's working with Hayden Paddon and Kevin Abbring, while Craig Breen, Stephane Lefebvre and Eric Camilli all have a great deal to thank Citroen and M-Sport for - even if there are those who remain convinced the French Fiesta is part-funded.

Makinen's malaise was set in stone a decade or more ago. And, while he considers visiting the old school for an immediate fix, he's already got an eye to the future with Japanese youngsters Hiroki Arai and Takamoto Katsuta on the books.

But how about it, for one year only... Loeb, Solberg and Makinen ride together again.

Then, the future. Promise.