Hirvonen, a winner of 15 WRC events and four times a runner-up in the standings, quit the series at the end of the 2014 season, turning his attention to rally-raiding.

The Finn finished 13th in the Dakar Rally on his second attempt, losing the chance of a top-five finish after colliding with a truck on the ante-penultimate stage of the event.

Admitting he still follows WRC "a little bit", Hirvonen said he can imagine M-Sport, where he spent the majority of his top-line rallying career, challenging for the crown.

"It could be [possible]," he told Motorsport.com when asked about the chances of Ogier defending his title.

"It's been a long time that all the teams had to design a new car at the same time, and Ford has always been able to design a competitive car.

"I don't know for sure, but it is possible. I really hope they can get back to winning ways, because the team and Malcolm [Wilson, team boss] have done so much for my career. I really hope all the best for them."

Hirvonen also noted the importance of Ogier joining a new team after dominating the field with Volkswagen for four years.

"It's going to be interesting to see what Ogier can do in another car, which he hasn't been developing from the beginning like he did with the Volkswagen," added Hirvonen. "It's going to be interesting."

Toyota "not completely ready yet"

While Volkswagen left the series at the end of 2016, the German marque will be replaced by another manufacturer in the form of Toyota.

Hirvonen, who tested the team's car in 2016, reckons the Japanese team will not be at its strongest when the season kicks off, but could challenge for podiums later on.

He added: "I think maybe they [Toyota] are not completely ready yet. They had such a tight schedule to develop the car, and what I'm hearing is that there's still some work to do.

"But Jari-Matti [Latvala] has a lot of experience already, and if he can really focus and get the team behind him as well, yeah, they might.

"But I don't think it's going to happen in the first half of the season, maybe later on they'll be able to fight for the podiums."

Hirvonen is hopeful his fellow countryman can recover from his difficult 2016 campaign, which saw Latvala win just once and finish only sixth in the standings.

"It hasn't been maybe too easy for him, he's had some mistakes and, I think, especially last year, he had a lot of mechanical issues with the car as well, which was a bit surprising from a team like Volkswagen," said Hirvonen.

"Hopefully he can kind of zero in on his situation and just go through and develop the car, take all the rallies one at a time."