2012 IRC: Rallies, teams, drivers

[mousti]

Loix will probably focus next year more on the BRC then on IRC don't expect a full program there..

[pucky54]

Loix will probably focus next year more on the BRC then on IRC don't expect a full program there..

Sounds not very good!!!

[RS]

News on Wilks: Peugeot calls on Guy Wilks to deliver more consistency if he keep his drive - IRC news - AUTOSPORT.com

[Leon]

News on Wilks: Peugeot calls on Guy Wilks to deliver more consistency if he keep his drive - IRC news - AUTOSPORT.com

If they give him another chance

[Motorsportfun]

Neuville at Skoda?? I'd have thought Citroen would be keeping tabs on him - he needs more gravel experience. He was quick, but made mistakes. I think he has a bright future.
It will be interesting what Peugeot UK do, would feel sorry for Wilks if they dropped him - but he's had a nightmare of a year. I really hope Proton can sort out their reliability.

I think Proton is just waiting for a ready-to-run engine for their Satria. In the past, there were some talks for the engines that Sunred bought by a Luxembourg-based developer for the WTCC campaign. Any news about it?

Mirek, for what concern Mikkelsen and Hanninen's odds, would be a natural choice to pick Hanninen in the VW WRC team, because he's a good developer. What kind of experience has Mikkelsen about it? In fact, Hanninen developed the car with Sainz and Sebastian Lindholm... Mikkelsen in those days was destroying some Focus WRC...

[Mirek]

Mirek, for what concern Mikkelsen and Hanninen's odds, would be a natural choice to pick Hanninen in the VW WRC team, because he's a good developer. What kind of experience has Mikkelsen about it?

That's just what I heard. Time will tell. I don't know development skills of Andreas but I see more future potential in him than in Juho just because he is much younger but similar in speed. I hate to say this because I really like Juho but this point seems to be quite obvious.

In fact, Hanninen developed the car with Sainz and Sebastian Lindholm... Mikkelsen in those days was destroying some Focus WRC...

There were much more people involved in the development such as Kopecký, Baumschlager or Starý. These three together with Lindholm were the testers since the very beginning. Now Kresta (afaik he's there as a wish of Reiger), Loix and I believe also Mikkelsen are part of development testing but by far most of testing kilometers were driven by Kopecký. These are thousands every year. I think that Sainz did only small portion like Panizzi or Vouilloz did.

[RS]

Some news/rumours from today's UK Motorsport press:

- Mikkelsen looks likely to stay with Skoda UK but add some WRC rounds with a Fabia S2000 (plus recce all WRC events)

- Scotland still might not be on the calendar next year. It depends whether the Arctic rally runs in IRC. There is a quote from one IRC boss in Autosport magazine and he is quite angry with Scotland, or maybe rather the collective UK series organisers about the inflexibility of the date of Scotland. They (and everybody else) love the event but it has been difficult for the organisers to make it break even and difficult for IRC to slot it into the calendar. However if Scotland doesn't happen they have a back-up plan of Circuit of Ireland.

- IRC looks set to merge with ERC and adopt it's name from 2013. This is something I have suggested before and in my opinion would be great news for both Eurosport Events and the ERC.

[Mirek]

IRC looks set to merge with ERC and adopt it's name from 2013. This is something I have suggested before and in my opinion would be great news for both Eurosport Events and the ERC.

Some time a go I heard the same. I completely agree with You.

[RS]

One other piece of news: IRC will allow 1.6T 'RRCs' in next years championship providing the restrictor size remains the same.

[mousti]

Not really a suprise for me. But want to know more about that restrictor size will that get be a bit bigger like 31 mm or so?