2023 WRC News & Rumours

[Steve Boyd]

Stupid rule. Open the competition to all tyres.

It would be better for the tyre manufacturers too. Pirelli could brag about beating their competitors instead of just being famous for puncturing.

But would it be better for the sport? How many teams would get a tyre sponsorship deal? How many tyre manufacturers would want to get into a development war. If "brand X" tyres had an exclusive deal with one team and their tyres were much better than the rest, where would that leave the other teams? How much would the teams without a deal have to pay for tyres compared with now?
Opening up to all tyres might only work if you make all tyres available to all teams and ban any links between tyre manufacturers and teams. Would the teams be intersted in this? Without knowing details of the current tyre supply deal, we can't say.

[ictus]

But would it be better for the sport? How many teams would get a tyre sponsorship deal? How many tyre manufacturers would want to get into a development war. If "brand X" tyres had an exclusive deal with one team and their tyres were much better than the rest, where would that leave the other teams? How much would the teams without a deal have to pay for tyres compared with now?
Opening up to all tyres might only work if you make all tyres available to all teams and ban any links between tyre manufacturers and teams. Would the teams be intersted in this? Without knowing details of the current tyre supply deal, we can't say.

You can say the same thing about suspension, turbos, etc...
Why not have all the teams use the same engines and bodys, only strap a different badge on the front?
Competition between manufacturers always improves the final product

[mknight]

Recently we had tire competition with DMACK 2014-2017 and before that with Pirelli until end of 2006.

The overall effect wasn't positive.

Yes you had some positive effect like DMACK paying for Tanak's and in 2017 Evans starts but overall it reduced the competition.

The reason was that one tire was always significantly better in one set of conditions. To the point that it got boring.

DMACK made the tire better on wet+cold gravel, so in GB you had one rally for DMAC(Evans) and one for others.
Before that Michelin was much better on dry tarmac so Pirelli (Subarus) were basically always on last places on tarmac. When it rain d Pirelli was much better, so every stage was Subaru 1-2.

Thing is tire manus even did this on purpose (certainly DMACK did). Making their tires much better in specific conditions to guarantee a good result on at least one rally, rather then trying to match overall.

In a field with too few cars, this kind of "automatic" differences made for an even narrower field and fewer close fights.

[Andre Oliveira]

At least in WRC2 we lost the competition. Why they oblige one/two round teams to use Pirelli? That's non sense.

[AMSS]

Recently we had tire competition with DMACK 2014-2017 and before that with Pirelli until end of 2006.

The overall effect wasn't positive.

Yes you had some positive effect like DMACK paying for Tanak's and in 2017 Evans starts but overall it reduced the competition.

The reason was that one tire was always significantly better in one set of conditions. To the point that it got boring.

DMACK made the tire better on wet+cold gravel, so in GB you had one rally for DMAC(Evans) and one for others.
Before that Michelin was much better on dry tarmac so Pirelli (Subarus) were basically always on last places on tarmac. When it rain d Pirelli was much better, so every stage was Subaru 1-2.

Thing is tire manus even did this on purpose (certainly DMACK did). Making their tires much better in specific conditions to guarantee a good result on at least one rally, rather then trying to match overall.

In a field with too few cars, this kind of "automatic" differences made for an even narrower field and fewer close fights.

There is another side of this as well, the manufactorers especially in F1 when they had Bridgestone and Michelin at the same time weren`t too excited because at the the post race press reports they spoke more about if the winner was on Bridgestone or Michelin, not if the winner was a Ferrari or a Renault as example, especially the Rally 1 teams might be worried about this. The tire manufactorers again would probably love this (at least the winners)

[Andre Oliveira]

I like when Michelin and now Pirelli commemorate the x win in WRC. They run alone... what stat is relevant?

[EstWRC]

As always every year during rally Finland the rumors start

Ogier or Evans to Hyundai?

https://www.rallye-magazin.de/wrc/ar...medium=twitter

[mknight]

They seem certain Hyundai wants 4 cars? Or do they mean 4 drivers changing in 3 cars like now?

Hyundai has 3 "problems":
- 3rd car
Is Suninen a good longer term solution? (too early to tell) if so paired with Sordo or even alone? Is Sordo still good enough? ( It looked like that in Portugal but since then it was quite bad again.)

- Title candidate that can challenge Rovanpera.
Neuville imo just isn't up for it. They can hope Lappi improves further and becomes one.

- Young driver with good potential. Imo Lindholm is not the one. He ended in Hyundai mostly because nobody better (Solberg or Pajari) was interested.

Ogier would fit in the 3rd car, pairing with Suninen, or for title challenge, but I kinda doubt he is interested in that. Evans would fit as fulltime "3rd" car.

Toyota has a potential problem though. Katsuta is not good enough for 3rd car. I thought Solberg would go there, but lately Pajari seems more likely (full season Rally2 and some Rally1 starts). If Toyota then loses one of Ogier/Evans , manu title starts to look difficult for them. Even with Rovanpera dominating.

[EstWRC]

Also. Juohki reporting in Finnish media that Suninen has a contract also for next year with Hyundai, 7 rallies

[mknight]

That would imo rule out any chance for Evans switching. Ogier to pair him up would still work.