Hyundai can already boast a driver line-up of three WRC rally winners in Thierry Neuville, Hayden Paddon and Dani Sordo - and adding a fourth car for Mikkelsen would, some fear, make the Hyundai a shoo-in for future manufacturers’ titles.

Mikkelsen tested the i20 last Friday and negotiations are ongoing between him and the Alzenau-based squad, even though Hyundai is playing down the chances of a contract.

The Norwegian is also talking to Toyota about a potential agreement for the rest of this year and into 2018.

One source said: "We’ve just emerged from a period of dominance in the sport [with VW in 2013-16] and you have to question how much good it would do us to go into that again.

"If Mikkelsen signed for Hyundai, it would be hard for any of the rest to do anything about that.

"The driver market is weak at the moment; we have plenty of drivers coming through the ranks, but there aren’t many sitting on the sidelines ready to jump in and perform at the top level.

"From the perspective of the WRC, it would be better if Andreas went to Citroen or Toyota – that would even things up quite nicely."

Mikkelsen in demand

Hyundai team manager Alain Penasse agreed that there was plenty of demand for Mikkelsen, telling Motorsport.com: "It’s the same all around the service park, there are plenty of opportunities.

"At Citroen Kris Meeke doesn’t have a contract for next year, so they are looking. Toyota’s line-up is weak, they have some good results, but everybody is looking to have a good driver in their team.

"For Malcolm [Wilson, M-Sport team principal] he has Sebastien [Ogier] and [Ott] Tanak, Tanak is impressive, but maybe not good enough yet. We are not the only ones who look [at Mikkelsen]."

He added: "We have run four cars before [for Kevin Abbring] and we will consider it. Nothing is decided, but it would be a lot of work and it would need a lot of budget."

But Penasse poured cold water on speculation that Mikkelsen could be bringing money to drive for Hyundai.

"It’s never going to be that kind of commercial deal," he said. "For those kind of customer operations, we have the R5 car.

"Some teams hire World Rally Cars, but that’s not what we do at Hyundai."