2024 WRC News & Rumours

[WRCStan]

So we're told the new potential audience for the WRC is young and has a short attention span, so the change that is made is the introduction of a points system that has to be studied if you have any chance of understanding it (kids love to study), when the new potential audience wouldn't even have been aware of the problem it was trying to solve...

Few study points, most of us will just accept the standings as read/told. Few hardcore fans watch Sunday's stages now. Ref Andy's point, switching off the cruising crews is no good for WRC Promoter. The problem they see is fewer eyeballs and engagement. Changing the points is a method to liven it up, thus increasing engagement. But there's more to it than this points system change why I ask this question. Sulland talks about a points system that is good for privateers' sponsors. FIA and Promoter do not give a flying fck about privateers. The idea WRC is a sport and they have duty to provide this service is detached from reality IMO.

Then there is the usual topics that perpetually crop up. According to FIA and Promoter; 10 Rally1 cars is enough. 3 Manufacturers is enough. Rally2/+ will not replace Rally1. WRC is never going to be a privateer series. All these points that are raised here with the belief the FIA doesn't know what it is doing, that going back to the past is what is really required. 'Old farts' don't make reason out of what the FIA/Promoter is doing and is trying to achieve, just moan.

[WRCStan]

He was involved, no need for mocking. This change was discussed in Baku and then signed off by the task force (Richards and Reid). (https://dirtfish.com/rally/wrc/wrcs-...unday-driving/)

OK, the rally working group involving Richards and Reid was announced during the Baku meet. It will cover issues beyond WRC to grassroots rallying. https://www.fia.com/news/fia-statement-future-rallying

WMSC discusses and approves/rejects motions proposed to it, including all championship or discipline rules. They also approved the rule change at the Baku meet. No way the new working group invented and thrashed through this change, to propose it to the WMSC, to discuss, to vote on, within those days. After WMSC ratified the system change idea it said a WMSC Task Force was responsible for setting the points distribution. This may have involved Richards as a WMSC member, we don't know for sure. https://www.fia.com/news/wmsc-gather...-landmark-year

The proposal would likely have come from the WRC Commission, given it's a WRC regulation and not a general rallying rule and with so few manufacturers involved. Richards is not a member of these. There's also the WRC working groups, task forces and committees elsewhere, such as the meeting with drivers that Solberg chaired as Drivers Commission president. That was the meeting that had 80 ideas discussed, one of which is likely to be this points change.

Come to think of it, does Richards even have skin in the WRC game? He can't even be bothered to get a WRC round going as MSUK chief. It's possible he gets involved, he is on the senate I think, but I still think it's better to have some evidence.

[HKSjbg]

…you are 'old farts' as somebody happily self-identified earlier in this thread.

I wouldn’t say I’m happy about having reached old-fart age

[WRCStan]

I wouldn’t say I’m happy about having reached old-fart age

Would you "reluctantly accept".

[the sniper]

I wouldn’t say I’m happy about having reached old-fart age

Mid thirties old fart here. If I'm too old to be relevant to their thinking, good luck to them and their new audience.

[focus206]

Mid thirties old fart here. If I'm too old to be relevant to their thinking, good luck to them and their new audience.

When I happen to watch touring car or GT races live on YT and there's a live chat (clearly mostly populated by a younger audience), I see much more often people complaining or being confused by the few not intuitive rules (for examples, the tons of different driver classes in GT World Challenge) than people complaining about the race being boring or predictable. Most people who approach motorsport to begin with, are mature enough to understand that not every race can be exciting until the end. Of course, if 90% of events in a championship are that way, then it's a problem.

[TypeR]

Seeing that there is so much confusion about the new rules for couple of days.. WRC/FIA should have already explained and made it clear.. but seems they don't care.

And with that ,,old-fart'' story... ah, better not. Young-manbuns.

PS 32yo.. but if rules that should be easy and simple to understand create such discussion in many guys tied to rallying, then there is something wrong.

[HKSjbg]

Would you "reluctantly accept".

More like ‘begrudgingly accept’. Maybe we’re just getting confused about the new rules because our minds are turning to mush

[wyler]

italian media did 23 vs 24 point system comparison on this year championship.
result is: nothing changes, except classification is shorter. Rovampera even got the same exact point of this year.

here their statement: "What would have changed by applying the new points scoring for the 2023 WRC season to the 2024 season? Practically NOTHING, except to have a shorter leaderboard, in the sense of reduced gaps at the end of the season.
As you can see from the simulation I did (barring errors and omissions of course) you can see how the FIA scores for the 2024 season have been drawn up. The simulations were done on Rovanpera, who in fact turns out to have the same final points with one scoring system or the other. The intention then was not to upset anything but to make the championship more tightly contested until the last race."
Screenshot 2023-12-17 alle 23.16.29.jpg

[bluuford]

I made my own calculation just for first four rallies and what did I found?
1. Rovanperä and Ogier collected the same amount of points in Monte (26/26).
2. After Sweden, Tänak would not have been first on the road in Mexico, but he would have been third. (1. Rova 44 points, 2. Neuville 40 points, 3. Tänak 39 points).
3. After four rounds, classification would have looked like below. Note that Rovanperä who would have led according to 2024 rules by 6 points was actually trailing by 2 points and in position three. Note that Rovanperä had only one second place and three fourth places. So, basically with one podium you can lead the championship with some margin That means, there is not so much point to fight for the win as it is not so much rewarded, if you finish near podium, it is fine..

New Old
Rovaperä 79 67
Evans 73 69
Neuville 73 58
Tänak 66 66
Ogier 70 69
Lappi 28 31
Katsuta 19 18
Sordo 18 17
Sunninen 0 0
Loubet 10 14
Breen 20 19