[WRC] News & rumours (part III)

I have moved questions of Nafpaktos to ERC thread as his questions were about ERC regulations.

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Originally Posted by makinen_fan

Can anyone explain what exactly is meant by this. I cant really see the point of this.
- It is clarified that a car which has not started from the start line within 20 seconds will be considered as retired and will be able to restart under Rally 2 on the subsequent day.

Does this mean if the car stalls on the start line and fail to start within 20s the crew will retire? Also someone this year failed to start on the correct minute waiting for next one (Sordo ??) and then realised it, does it mean they would have been retired?

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This rule is in regulations for many years. But now there is only change in formulation. Till now, it was written, that if car will not leave start line in 20 seconds, car must be pushed away and crew is EXCLUDED. New rule says, that if car will not leave start line in 20 seconds, car must be pushed away and crew is RETIRED.

So on paper and in theory we should be in for a hell of a season next year with drivers having no splits and the cars starting in championship order on first two days. But we will see how it turns out in reality, i totally love that they banned the splits.

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Originally Posted by Mirek

I think that You are going too far. I bet nobody will bother with hunting people with some boards around the stage. That system is quite highly unreliable and if they want to make the afford, be it, it's no big deal. It doesn't work in the dark, in the dust, in the rain, in the fog. It requires good information for the man with the board which is possible only in some places of the stages, it requires a lot of people. In the end it doesn't change that much in my opinion.

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It indeed may be that my thinking is further away than where the reality lies but it may be granted to me because I don't make rules, I don't enforce them or plan to circumvent them.

What comes to people possibly using pit boards or any other way to communicate split times to cars: it has been done before and it is possible that some would try to do it again. So, if FIA wants that this rule is not a dead letter, they must police it some way. All they need is someone to watch over the onboard camera tapes. It doesn't need to be every stage because splits are useful only in certain key stages. It doesn't need to be for every competitor, just works contracted drivers and maybe WRC2 ones. That is doable and not very expensive.

Pit boards do work in all but heaviest rain, dust is mostly behind the car and in dusty conditions cars can't go flat out so showing splits is of no use. Same applies to fog to a degree. But that's a bit beside the point which is: in order to curb the use of pit boards, FIA must police the rule somehow. And publicly declare what the penalty for breach will be.

Basically I agree with You but I think that they will not check the onboards. Let's see.

When I play a rally video game I get split times to show if I am ahead or behind the fastest time on the stage... if I am behind I try harder, if I am ahead I maintain my current effort knowing my pace is already good. Isn't this what Meeke means by wanting the split-times ?

If what this is really about is making drivers always go flat-out then I dont think it will do that. If the leader has say 30sec lead on Day 3 he wont just go flat out but will still drive sensibly knowing he has enough in hand. The only time he will is if the times are close, and he would do so anyway...

The point is that if You don't have the information (I mean no information at all) You don't know how fast You actually drive compared to the others. It's impossible to drive flat out over the whole rally distance because You would crash almost for sure. You also never know where Your opponents start some crazy attack or if in the stages before they drove flat out or not. With splits You can react within let's say few minutes (or if You drive after You know immediately), without it it can take half an hour on a long stage before You realize what Your opponent did and that is hell of a time to make some difference. We've seen that often in IRC/ERC.

I can name several of such cases from my head...
On Cyprus Bouffier took over one minute in one stage against everybody else because he took a big risk over 35 km long rough stage.
In Sanremo Basso not just once destroyed others by a big margin in a night run over the huge Ronde stage (once around 30 seconds I think).
In Jänner every year the last stage Bad Zell brings difference of 15-20 seconds for somebody who risks driving crazy in the fog over an ice. Usually this stage although last makes a big change of the leaderboard (Kubica, Hänninen, Harrach or Baumschlager took a big time there in the past).

Citroën Racing confirms another year with Mads Ostberg for the entire championship. Note: he will not be nominated for Citroën in Monte-Carlo, that will be Meeke (as the no.1 driver) and Sebastien Loeb.
Think its' the best choice made by Citroën, Mads is the best of the rest available, has experience (also with the DS3) and hungry to perform even better.
With Loeb (maybe) on tarmac rounds (quick look at the WTCC-calendar it's possible) it's a very interesting combination.

Mats van den Brand from NL wins the DMACK Shoot Out and drives 1 WRC2 Rally in the Fiesta R5! Nice:D

Why only one rally? :-) It seems it is just good promo for M-sport.