[WRC] News & rumours (part II)

Greece in or out for next season?

FIA denies Acropolis Rally already dropped from 2014 WRC schedule - WRC news - AUTOSPORT.com

Citroen Sport's plans for 2014:

Citroen: We will be there with a manufacturer entry | WRC News | Aug 2013 | Crash.Net

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Originally Posted by tommeke_B

Indeed... Average length of WRC event in:

2012: 387,89kms
2011: 356,96kms
2010: 351,33kms
2009: 349,91kms
2008: 346,64kms

You can't really say events got shorter in terms of SS kms, but in number of stages they got a bit shorter I think. More longer stages, like 40-50km long monster-stages, I don't really like the idea of less seperate stages, especially from a spectating point of view.

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That is too short timespan, no big changes there. But compare SS km's from late 90's to now, then you see a difference. Not to mention 80's and now....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by COD

That is too short timespan, no big changes there. But compare SS km's from late 90's to now, then you see a difference. Not to mention 80's and now....

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You shall follow the context. That was reply to the statement that WRC events gets shorter every year which is not true because the trend reversed in last couple of years.

Comparison with 90' or 80' is a bit pointless. Everything was different those days. For example for asphalt rallies there was waaaaay less traffic so it mush have been much easier to close roads than today. Those days there was no safety so You didn't need 1500 marshals for 250 km long event (Barum this year). To held 1000 km long event today in Europe would be so expensive that there would be probably on two or three events, not speaking about number of teams which could afford to take part.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by COD

That is too short timespan, no big changes there. But compare SS km's from late 90's to now, then you see a difference. Not to mention 80's and now....

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Tommeke_B's timespan is long enough to understand the trend. In 2005 the maximum competitive distance rule was changed from 400km to 350km. And as you can see it is slowly growing again when the limit has been set higher.

Not a big surprise, Nasser and Papa Wilson want Neuville for 2014 (and maybe Ostberg too....):

M-Sport determined to hang on to Thierry Neuville - WRC news - AUTOSPORT.com

how will pay him?Can he pay more from Hyundai or Citroen?

Neuville says he wants to stay but would surely the chance to be no.1 at a full works team like Citroen would lure him away?

Maybe Nasser Al-Attiyah is paying some salary to Thierry. During NORF Markku Alen had a chat with his co-driver Nicolas Gilsoul and said that Nicolas is still working in his daily job.

FIA wants to tweak running order rules in the WRC - WRC news - AUTOSPORT.com