Going from national to international series

[Sulland]

If you are an European that has had sucess in your national series in R2 or R5. You feel that you need to go out to some international series in same class to develop further.

WRC is out of the question due to budget. The FIA geo-regional trophys are out, due to 0 publicity.

Your two options are ERC or BRC.
What are your pros and cons if you where to advise him or her?
Is the advice the same for R2 and R5, or are there differences?.

[PLuto]

I dont know if BRC is the best choice. For british or irish drivers ok, but for foreigners, especially from northern countries, I am not sure if it is the best way. But very important is the reason why the driver wants to go international. What is his target? Because there should be different real targets - he wants to be a WRC champion? he wants to be a factory driver? he wants to drive WRC car? he wants to win WRC event? he wants to start on WRC events? he wants to fight with equal rivals? he wants to gain experience and improve step by step? he wants to win the events from beginning? and I can continue with this reasons...

I know lot of drivers. Of course everybody wants to be a WRC champion. But some of them wants to be champions immediatelly, some of them are only talking about it but they are not doing enough, some of them wants to win events immediatelly and lost their interest when they are slow on first race abroad etc. But there are lot of possible ways how to gain the targets. I prefer the way where driver is going step by step proving his talent and speed against equal rivals. And then moving by ladder up to the highest championships...

[focus206]

If you are an European that has had sucess in your national series in R2 or R5. You feel that you need to go out to some international series in same class to develop further.

WRC is out of the question due to budget. The FIA geo-regional trophys are out, due to 0 publicity.

Your two options are ERC or BRC.
What are your pros and cons if you where to advise him or her?
Is the advice the same for R2 and R5, or are there differences?.

Why would one go to BRC in particular? BRC is another national series... apart from its golden "international" years of the late 90s, it's a national championship.

[electroliquid]

If you are an European that has had sucess in your national series in R2 or R5. You feel that you need to go out to some international series in same class to develop further.

WRC is out of the question due to budget. The FIA geo-regional trophys are out, due to 0 publicity.

Your two options are ERC or BRC.
What are your pros and cons if you where to advise him or her?
Is the advice the same for R2 and R5, or are there differences?.

As said before, BRC is not an option, except, maybe you're extraordinary talent, like Kalle Rovanpera, 17yo driving R5 car, or British/Irish, any other cases it's pointless.
All those young drivers stories is different, and to get one answer there is too many ifs...It depends on money, talent, what you want to achieve. Let's have one example. So maybe you're from Nordic/Baltic country ("born" on gravel roads). From 16yo you doing all national events - rallies, rally sprints in your country (maybe not all of them in Sweden, where many many national sprints), and some in neighbors countries (10-20 events, depends on money and events). FIA geo-regional trophies maybe has 0 publicity, but they still is trophies, it's good to do it, if you get title, also get FIA priority, it could be helpful. At age 17, still doing same, with some outings on unfamiliar surface (this case tarmac) - in Poland (from Baltics), or Denmark/Germany (from Scandinavia). If you're lucky, your country, or country near you has "real" international event with your familiar surface - WRC/ERC, depending on rules and money, you could start there, even in national field, to gain experience. At age 18, doing same, with swiching some events into another, or maybe do less national events, and extra "real" international one (maybe two). At age 19 ERC U27 (full/semi-full program)+national (+maybe geo-regional), at age 20 full ERC U27+ 2 or 3 WRC with R2. Plan could look like this (considering 2018 will be your success year)
2014 - full LV rally and sprint, full LT rally and sprint + one rally in Belarus
2015 - full LV rally and sprint, full LT rally + some EST rallies + one in Poland (tarmac)
2016 - full LV rally (incl. ERC) and sprint, full LT rally + two EST (incl. ERC) + one FIN + ERC Poland (tarmac) + WRC Poland
2017 - full LV rally (incl. ERC)+ one-two LT rally + one- two EST rally (basically full BRT)+ CZ ERC + PL ERC + FIN WRC + PL WRC + SWE WRC
2018 - full U27 ERC + full BRT + WRC SWE + WRC FIN + WRC GER.

I don't know cost of those programs, so maybe it's too much, and also maybe too few tarmac events for learning.

Many of drivers doing exactly same - Sirmacis, Sesks, Pipiras.

[Hartusvuori]

Depending on how early you are in your career, one make cups like French Peugeot Volant or German Opel Adam Cup offers a good chance to learn rallying outside your home country and also a good chance to learn tarmac especially if you are from "gravel country". But one season should be enough. If you are learning on those series year after year, it doesn't look too good.

[PLuto]

It is also important in which car you are starting your career. I think that for the super-youngsters it is not necessary to start with R2 car, despite there is not so many good smaller cars. THe ideal for me is actually Opel Adam Cup - good for learning and also good regarding costs. Lot of drivers starting in baltics is doing mainly Latvian championship and lot of similar events with similar surface - if I dont count snow which is rare also in winter, usually they are doing events on fast gravel. And when they are fast there, they are thinking that they are champions. But rallysport is also on different surfaces - normal gravel, slow gravel, tarmac. And from my point of view, that is the biggest problem for nordic/baltic drivers (despite it is improving during last years)...

[Mirek]

Still much better than here... our young drivers are being teached to drive in conditons which You don't find anywhere in WRC-ERC combined in 2018 (except Barum of course). Our stages are too specific in this matter - more demanding for setup than actual driving. Broken narrow asphalt doesn't require knowing good lines. The profile and surroundings of our stages makes them generally easy for pacenotes. There are very few stages where You can learn what it takes to overheat brakes or tyres (same problem in Nordic countries) etc.

I don't say driving on our stages is easy. For sure it's not but they are so specific that the experience is close to useless for most of WRC/ERC terrain.

[electroliquid]

It is also important in which car you are starting your career. I think that for the super-youngsters it is not necessary to start with R2 car, despite there is not so many good smaller cars. THe ideal for me is actually Opel Adam Cup - good for learning and also good regarding costs. Lot of drivers starting in baltics is doing mainly Latvian championship and lot of similar events with similar surface - if I dont count snow which is rare also in winter, usually they are doing events on fast gravel. And when they are fast there, they are thinking that they are champions. But rallysport is also on different surfaces - normal gravel, slow gravel, tarmac. And from my point of view, that is the biggest problem for nordic/baltic drivers (despite it is improving during last years)...

Agree. R2 isn't necessary for youngsters, there are other option, even national Civics or Clios are ok for now, for learning. But need to switch to R2 before going to ERC.
About surface problem is, that we don't have tarmac roads suited for rally, although there is some stages on tarmac with gravel suspension, but that experience is useless in ERC/WRC. Also is quite expensive have mixed championship, but Poland trying to achieve that (don't know why they ditch Gdansk rally). But maybe also there are less crews in championship recently...
ERC U27 seems to be balanced this year with 3 gravel and 3 tarmac events.
Situation improving also vice versa - tarmac drivers doing good job on gravel too.

[dupanton]

A national cup is for me the best option for a young driver who wants to go abroad. And then preferably mixed surface.
In France you have the Peugeot 208 cup, altough the level this year (in number of cars, not in pace) was a lot lower than it has been.
I think the Fiesta Junior cup in France will be very good next year. This year already there were a lot of cars, I think it will only get better.
And if course, the German Adam cup seems the very best option now. Price/competition is unbeatable, it's mixed surface, nice price with works team. The best option to start a career I think.

[Rally Power]

WRC is out of the question due to budget.

Actually, JWRC has been an option for many young guys, straight from their national series.

[PLuto]

Actually, JWRC has been an option for many young guys, straight from their national series.

And I think it was not the best way. They should make smaller steps. In future, it should help them much more than going directly to WRC.

[Sulland]

A national cup is for me the best option for a young driver who wants to go abroad. And then preferably mixed surface.
In France you have the Peugeot 208 cup, altough the level this year (in number of cars, not in pace) was a lot lower than it has been.
I think the Fiesta Junior cup in France will be very good next year. This year already there were a lot of cars, I think it will only get better.
And if course, the German Adam cup seems the very best option now. Price/competition is unbeatable, it's mixed surface, nice price with works team. The best option to start a career I think.

I agree. And there are many good cupcar options. Most of them are somewhere btw R1 and R2, both in power and cost.

in some nations that do not have split series, one for gravel and one for asphalt, but a national series with only one. They need to go out to learn the surface they are not used to.
Then for instance BRC is a good option for some. That also has to do with language. Logically for learning asfalt, french or benelux series would be a better a better option.

And the German Adam series is good, and more germans speak english than in French speaking countries. It is easier to work with teams that share a common language, to capture details.

For us up north the logical solution could be a scandinavian cooperation, asfalt rallies in Denmark, Gravel and snow in Sweden/Norway.
but logic is not always the easiest way forward.

[tommeke_B]

I know this is very difficult financially... But I think that for a driver who wants to develop, it's very important to drive a lot. Maybe it's better to drive a cheaper car, but with better preparation and more events. If you look at the stats of Ogier, Neuville, Tänak etc, you will see that during their "breakthrough" years they all did a lot of events. Nobody in WRC has got there by doing 5-6 events a year.

[PLuto]

Of course it is important to do lot of events. And also good is different types of events. Not necessary to do one complete championship, but you can choose single events in different countries. Or maybe the best way - one complete championship somewhere + add some DIFFERENT events. For example, if latvian driver wants to get experience abroad, it is better to try gravel event lets say in Hungary or Italy than in Estonia, where are similar stages...