[WRC] News & rumours (part IV) 2016

Of course me too I agree to not forget the past, learn from it and keep safe the soul and meaning of what rally is about. This is clear and I think we all agree on that.

What's really wrong today is that a promoter like RedBull sees the presence of 5 manufacturers and 13 new countries willing to enter the championship as an accomplishment rather than a "start". They are happy because there will be more money but I think it is actually a unique occasion to improve the product on many levels. I don't know if it will happen...
This is a more important problem of WRC nowadays in my opinion.

Sardegna & Corsica on the line of fire and if they don't move back to mainland, France & Italy will be out alltogether from the calendar according to Motorsport Monday.

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...apart from the fact the season opener is in France.

Sardegna's slot in the calendar would be a nice time of year to go to NZ and, realistically, who has been making more noise about running their event as part of the WRC? Some of those 13 events 'ready' to host a round of the WRC are a total surprise.

Croatia, for example, has a long established event (though no longer part of the ERC anymore) and others are part of ERC/APRC but where in the hell did Canada, Chile and Korea come from? I was surprised when I looked at the MERC calendar that there is no Abu Dhabi event but there's so much money spilling out of UAE I'm sure they would be able to put on a rally to WRC Commission/FIA/Red Bull's standards at the first attempt.

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Originally Posted by Mirek

This is exactly wrong thinking. For whom than the WRC is? It's for people who buy cars. This is how it's seen by manufacturers and it's rightful to see it as such. The society and the public reception of cars has changed hugely. Nowadays very few car buyers care about mechanical side of the product, about engines and gearboxes. Most of them don't even open the bonnet. You may rightfully dislike that (such as I do) but for many people today the more important thing about their car is that it works with their smartphone, have a big LCD screen, radar cruise control and can park automatically. This is where we got.

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This is one of these 'truths' that gets repeated over and over but I do not think they relate to motorracing. Did the average car buyer 30 years ago really care about the mechanical aspects of a car?? The used-car-salesman is a very old and common stereotype. That stereotype did not develop because average people knew so much about cars, rather the opposite. In my opinion the interest in the mechanical aspect of cars of the average person has not changed that much since then. The only difference between then and now is that now every car is pretty reliable so there is more focus on other functionality.

I am talking about the average person here of course. This does not apply to the minority of people that is interested in performance racing. Yes these people have disappeared from the rally sport somewhat. But is that because there is no more interest in performance cars or because rally sport does not cater to these people?? If you look at car parks on rally stages, you see Imprezas, Lancers, Escorts and other interesting vehicles. And then you watch the actual rallycars and you see identical Ford Fiestas, Opel Adams and Peugeot 208s. No wonder people with mechanical interests are not bothered by the rallysport.

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On the other hand I agree that WRC shall use more it's heritage and try to show more real stories. That's definitely good thing to do because rallying has a very big potential for creating stories. But than You have the RedBull as promoter and it's not difficult to see a clear pattern in anything RedBull does.

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Yes you are correct, stories need to be told. The evolution of rallycars, the different philosophies of the manufacturers, the adaptation of cars to the different surfaces and different rallies, all these things are important stories by which you can fill a lot of pre-rally discussions. But all that is killed by the homologations which dictate one identical car for all 13 events.

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Originally Posted by Jack4688`

...apart from the fact the season opener is in France.

Sardegna's slot in the calendar would be a nice time of year to go to NZ and, realistically, who has been making more noise about running their event as part of the WRC? Some of those 13 events 'ready' to host a round of the WRC are a total surprise.

Croatia, for example, has a long established event (though no longer part of the ERC anymore) and others are part of ERC/APRC but where in the hell did Canada, Chile and Korea come from? I was surprised when I looked at the MERC calendar that there is no Abu Dhabi event but there's so much money spilling out of UAE I'm sure they would be able to put on a rally to WRC Commission/FIA/Red Bull's standards at the first attempt.

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Yeah well MC is MC, hopefullt they are not stupid enough to let it go again.

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Originally Posted by Lousada

If you look at car parks on rally stages, you see Imprezas, Lancers, Escorts and other interesting vehicles. And then you watch the actual rallycars and you see identical Ford Fiestas, Opel Adams and Peugeot 208s. No wonder people with mechanical interests are not bothered by the rallysport.

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These interesting vehicles were making loss for manufacturers back then. And even today, production of some special editions are quite pointless, as there are not enough buyers. Ok, there are exceptions, but not many. Also, people with mechanical interests and understanding guess wouldn't bother about looks as they know what those cars can deliver. Sheer looks like evo and impreza can better attract common people just on visual basis.

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Originally Posted by Lousada

This is one of these 'truths' that gets repeated over and over but I do not think they relate to motorracing. Did the average car buyer 30 years ago really care about the mechanical aspects of a car?? The used-car-salesman is a very old and common stereotype. That stereotype did not develop because average people knew so much about cars, rather the opposite. In my opinion the interest in the mechanical aspect of cars of the average person has not changed that much since then. The only difference between then and now is that now every car is pretty reliable so there is more focus on other functionality.

I am talking about the average person here of course. This does not apply to the minority of people that is interested in performance racing. Yes these people have disappeared from the rally sport somewhat. But is that because there is no more interest in performance cars or because rally sport does not cater to these people?? If you look at car parks on rally stages, you see Imprezas, Lancers, Escorts and other interesting vehicles. And then you watch the actual rallycars and you see identical Ford Fiestas, Opel Adams and Peugeot 208s. No wonder people with mechanical interests are not bothered by the rallysport.

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What I meant is that saying "there is RX for such people" like Per said is wrong because the pool of those true petrol heads is relatively small (even the number of Imprezas and Evos around the stages is very small compared to the large majority of spectators) and the manufacturers involved in rallying naturally want to attract all kinds of car buyers including facebook/youtube generation or people who have no will to study exact rules (one particular problem of rallying is that it has very complicated rules but on the other hand other sports like baseball has too).

About the particular development in the society. Maybe it's because I come from different country but here the change is very rapid and clearly visible. Thirty years a go plenty of people were able to repair their cars themselves and were used to that. Basically every person living in a village was able to repair at least their moped (even my mother who is economist). That nearly completely disappeared with the development in car industry and with everything being a lot more affordable to buy and replace instead of repairing.

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Originally Posted by Lousada

Yes you are correct, stories need to be told. The evolution of rallycars, the different philosophies of the manufacturers, the adaptation of cars to the different surfaces and different rallies, all these things are important stories by which you can fill a lot of pre-rally discussions. But all that is killed by the homologations which dictate one identical car for all 13 events.

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I do agree. I'm all for more variety in the machinery and more freedom in the rules which could allow different approaches and ideas, something similar to current Le Mans rules. On the other hand the current state of rules was introduced to keep cost down for privateers and the large freedom would certainly close the door for them.

IMO people need to be captured by the excitement of watching thrilling rally cars to get them into the sport.

I know lots of people who like performance cars but have no interest in rallying.

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Originally Posted by Fast Eddie WRC

IMO people need to be captured by the excitement of watching thrilling rally cars to get them into the sport.

I know lots of people who like performance cars but have no interest in rallying.

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People who like performance cars usually are bottom feeders who enjoy the chinless vagabond dogs videos doing burnouts and going sideways around barrels after 176 attemps... we do not need these people in the rallying, we are the master race of motorsport... otherwise we might end up like MotoGP and F1 where every scared kid will have an opinion about the sport.

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Originally Posted by Fast Eddie WRC

IMO people need to be captured by the excitement of watching thrilling rally cars to get them into the sport.

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Yes. And how do you manage that? Simple. By doing proper promotion and making it easy for people to see the sport live.

Sadly, most promoters just want to make money, rather than actually promote; it's too much hard work.