the future of citroen is not in the WRC... They are not even a proper manufacturer any more.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sulland
Meeke has no potential without a huge investment... and i doubt anyone will invest in him
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the future of citroen is not in the WRC... They are not even a proper manufacturer any more.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sulland
Meeke has no potential without a huge investment... and i doubt anyone will invest in him
no more races for PG in AT Rallyteam:
http://www.vf.se/sport/bilsport/efter-k ... er-vmstart
Maybe Bernardo Sousa replaces him. Bernardo post something enigmatic on fb: and when i almost lost my hopes, i back in the fight
One way to work around it would be to go back to the rule of having three nominated drivers per team and only the best two would score points like it happened until 2003. The costs for the teams would be the same. In fact Volkswagen already runs three cars, Citroen and Ford run also three or four cars. Another advantage of this rule would be to finish with the "ghost" teams. There is "Volkswagen Motorsport" and "Volkswagen Motorsport 2", there is "Citroen Total Abu Dhabi World Rally Team" and "Abu Dhabi Citroen Total World Rally Team" and finally "Qatar World Rally Team" and "Qatar M-Sport World Rally Team". Obviously the B teams are not there to fight for the title against the same factory A team. We have seen in previous seasons an A team driver that underperforms beeing replaced by a B team driver that is doing well or a B team driver that is in front of a A team driver to get a time penalty on purpose to allow the A team driver to finish in a better position. So the main reason for the existence of B teams is to help the A teams. Other purpose is to give opportunitties/experience to promising drivers and also to allow the gentlemen drivers that are sponsoring the team to have a seat. (The M-Sport team is an exception this season. I believe the ony reason why Neuville was not promoted to the A team is because since very early in the season, before Thierry began to shine so bright, Malcolm Wilson realized that his team had no chances to fight for the manufacturers title so when Thierry started to deliver podium finishes there was no point in promoting him to the A team.). Going back to my point if FIA would allow three, or even four, pilots to be nominated by each manufacturer (only the best two would score points) this would mean the same cost for manufacturers but it would allow room for some pilots that are fast but not very consistent. These pilots would have more chances to improve without so big pressure to deliver results. For instance this season Citroen could have Hirvonen, Sordo and Meeke. If Meeke crashes, no big problem, the other two would be there to assure the two finish positions. And as a bonus instead of having a championship with three A team and other three B teams that do not want to fight for the title we would have only three teams. Less teams but that would reflect the reality (this season there are only three manufacturers in WRC).Quote:
Originally Posted by NxOxT
Quote:
Originally Posted by Negaiss
Very nice post. The only thing that matters is if the driver pay for his own mistakes, because the manufacturer can't/doesn't want to. That is how JML became a top-line rally driver that he is today, and that is why I think Novikov and Mads will have pretty bright carrers as well- the flash of speed is there, consistency will come after the 100th crash
And I think it's fairly obvious the manufacturers want this aswell- maybe just a case they don't have a rallying equivalent of FOCA to push their wishes to the FIA? This is an interesting question, I know nothing about the work of manufacturers but I'm sure somebody does.Quote:
Originally Posted by jcatanho
+1
I even liked the system used in best IRC years when team competition was replaced by manufacturer competition without any nomination of drivers (whoever drove a car of Peugeot could take points for Peugeot). It helped to create very competitive championship where manufacturer teams were supporting their bets privateers/importer teams because those could have delivered important points and basically the more cars of the make on start the higher chance for points and manufacturers were encouraged to spread competitive cars all over the rallying world. There were events with like 30 competitors in top class (in years when S2000 were in N4 class it was even over 50 cars in top class - for example Barum rally 2008 I think). Young drivers like Neuville or Mikkelsen benefited from this system a lot as both were driving for satellite importer teams. Now ERC replaced this system by team competition which in this lower budget series is nothing but a joke.
I agree with you, that would be the best solution. Whoever drives a car for a manufacturer can score points for that manufacturer like the IRC (or the WRC until 1992). But I was taking in consideration the costs. With only three or four nominated pilots per manufacturer the cost would be the same as now. With no limit for the number of pilots the costs could increase.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mirek
But you can fill the majority of entry list with private cars of a certain manufacturer if they bring their cost down, like M-Sport does at the moment. Also you Citroen/VW that does not like to sell/rent cars to privateer teams for whatever reason and Hyundai that will not have enough cars ready to sell. So I don't think such a rule is/will ever be favourable by manufacturers. Although it will be good for us!Quote:
Originally Posted by jcatanho
If you make a championship per manufacturer, I'm sure that Citroën/Hyundai/VW will be more interested in renting/selling a few cars to privateers. It's some kind of Insurance to Always have 2 cars who score points. The impact of this could be even bigger if FIA dumps the Rally2 rule... :)
But maybe we are forgetting the privateers? For example Prokop/Kosciuszko, wouldn't it be nice if they can "win" something too?