Really? Do you mean only in terms of top end power or overall performance?
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In general. Hyundai feels most powerful, Skoda also very close, but with evo2 engine Fiesta is really not far away... OK, Skoda is always with long gear ratios, etc. but differences are not that big. I don't have big experience with different fuels in all R5 cars, but Fiesta on one sport fuel have 10/15hp difference comparing to the other sport fuel. So this is also a factor. Same like factory/customer spec mappings, etc. So there are many variables...
Do you think it's possible that rules with a single fuel supplier (like in WRC or in Belgium) may favour one of the cars? Could it be more fair to allow any type of fuel for everyone?
Some fuels are better (new spec ETS, VP, etc) and some worse (WRC Panta), and some engines cope better with worse performance fuel (less prone for knocking, etc.). So for sure this will make a difference. On the other hand all manufacturers have mappings for few different fuels but not every mapping is done same way, some are done 100%, some let's say 90% because some customer wanted to use this fuel, so they made mapping for it and offer it also for everyone else, but it's not done with so much attention, etc. So if they know they all need to use some XXX brand fuel everywhere in the world for example they focus on mapping for it and then it's more even with performance, but still some differences, as some fuels favor more some engines, etc.
Other thing is that in R5 main concern is pop-off valve so strategy for it is most important, as in ideal conditions one engine can be super strong but then will have many issues with pop-off so will loose most... so all is about finding proper balance. Better to loose some 0,1-0,2b boost (as most R5 cars allow to do manually or automatically by software itself), so of course loosing hp/Nm then but still better than loosing 0,8b boost when pop-off opens. Similar rules with ALS strategies, etc.
Homologation jokers:
Fiesta engine
Fabia engine x2 and fuel circuit
It's in Czech but quite interesting article based on ewrc-results database regarding R5 cars statistics. Likely not 100% but in the amount of data it can be fairly accurate. https://www.ewrc.cz/clanek/31611-f-f...spolehlivosti/
Particularly interesting for me is percentage of retirements from technical reasons:
Fabia 7,18%, Fiesta 9,84%, 208 15,91%, i20 17,11%, DS3 18,31%, Mirage 27,27%
Aren't these retirement stats for the R5 Fiesta going to be biased against it as it was the earliest R5 ?
Of the total number in use, many Fiesta's are going to be older cars and have done more mileage and events.
They were also cheaper to buy originally.