How do you see the future of rally?

Maybe I shall make some my statement so that it doesn't look I'm just arrogant type disagreeing with all :)

So, what can WRC offer to the audience?

Mind-blowing machinery? No for obvious reasons. In 2012 none can be astonished by a Fiesta with 300 Hp. For that it would have to be 1000 Hp strong but than we have the safety magic formula. I don't see much space for improvement here...

Adventure? No. Who can see any kind of adventure in just 1,5 hours of competing over nothing more than a common working period? Teams have luxurious service hospitalities, everyone sleeps in hotels. The feeling of adventure is definitely THE thing which appeals to the crowd in 21st century. There is plenty of space for improvement here. We need real stories at the end of the day not just a table with numbers. The audience has to find itself living the event with their heroes.

Events with unique character? No. Some events remain unique thanks to their nature but at least the format shall differ to allow event creating their own spirit. And we have too many same looking ones...

Spectacle? Yes, sure. I still can't believe why it is so difficult to sell so much action-packed images...

Stunning scenery? Yes, sure. Rallying and marathons have by far the biggest potential of all motorsport kinds in this matter.


Some other points...

Why the hell do we need a competition fuel? We use 5x more expensive fuel to make just an average power from engine with tiny restrictor. That doesn't make sense.

For what do we need homologations? To protect business of manufacturers or to make sport more safe or more fair? IMHO the first is right. A simple set of common rules would work way better for large majority of competitors. We don't need parts which cost ten times more just because they have the right marking on them.

Do we need to make cars more and more standardized and more and more ancient in comparison with stock machinery? No, motorsport needs to keep the engineering spirit. Allow everyone bring their own ideas and open the door to all those crazy inventors who fill Dakar, hill climbs etc.

The time showed that making cars simpler under current homologation rules is just a waste of time. What simpler can we bring to the top level of rallying than S2000? It's year 2012 for God's sake! The car is full packed of 1980' inventions and still expensive like hell. What will be next? A one liter FWD? A full factory shopping bag won't cost less , if You ask me...

Why do we need a special formula for world championship? To make it unique? But than why do we speak about cost? These two ideas are in complete contradiction. We can't make something cheaper if we limit the production to few single pieces. Did super hi-tech WRC (in comparison with 2012 ones) do bad in 2000? No, they did excellent. Did S2000 do bad? No, they did excellent. 300 pieces sold worldwide in some five years. Peugeot itself sold 100 pieces of 207! What common have these two cases? They were allowed everywhere. Is it accidental that WRC started to die after it was banned in regional and national championships? I believe it isn't...

As regards encouraging manufacturers to enter the sport at the top I don't think there's too much wrong with the current WRC formula. It's kept Citröen & Ford in and Mini & VW have joined (not withstanding the spat between BMW & Prodrive). The R1, R2 & R3 categories are beginning to be taken up at lower levels but the bit between them & WRC (R4, S2000 & 1.6T with different size restrictors) is a bit of a muddle, though that should clear with time.
I think the "standard style event" regulations of the recent past have taken away a lot of the romance & perceived challenge that the classic events used to have. It remains to be seen how events will evolve following Jean Todt's statements & how many complaints longer, tougher events will produce!
The key thing for me is media coverage and that must include free to air terrestrial TV. I don't believe that live TV is necessary. A well edited daily summary that tells the story would be better in my view. It works for the major cycling tours & worked for the RAC Rally in the days of BBC Top Gear Rally Report. If longer and tougher events with TV coverage can generate a feeling in the general population that rallying is something challenging & exciting then we will see another revival - but it will still be too expensive!

My reply was strictly for "now it's a fortune to buy a car" comment. Back in the days the grass was greener mentality ...

But ofcourse there is more than that, nothing to argue about

I've said it before, but my biggest bugbear with the current regs is if I want a Fiesta WRCar or a Mini WRCar, I have to go to M-Sport/ Prodrive. In the old GpA days, you could pick were you wanted to get your car from.

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Originally Posted by Mirek

Is it accidental that WRC started to die after it was banned in regional and national championships? I believe it isn't...

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I think you've hit the nail on the head here. I'd add: do we think it coincidental that, to me at least, the sport was strongest — whether in terms of driver talent, public interest in events, etc — when national/regional championships ran the same equipment at their top levels as did the world championship? This, I believe, is crucial.

The cost point, especially the comparison between 'then and now', I find most interesting. Of course, I appreciate the fact that rallying, especially top-level rallying, has never been a cheap business. But I don't believe this tells the full story, for, surely, there was a time (perhaps, one might say, before the advent of the Group B 'supercars') that relatively top-line machinery was available to a wider pool of drivers than are today's WRCars? Something, somewhere, has gone awry.

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Originally Posted by Steve Boyd

As regards encouraging manufacturers to enter the sport at the top I don't think there's too much wrong with the current WRC formula. It's kept Citröen & Ford in and Mini & VW have joined (not withstanding the spat between BMW & Prodrive).

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A fair point, but I don't think it's been good for the sport as a whole. Certainly, regional and national championships have hardly thrived during this era.

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Originally Posted by Steve Boyd

I think the "standard style event" regulations of the recent past have taken away a lot of the romance & perceived challenge that the classic events used to have. It remains to be seen how events will evolve following Jean Todt's statements & how many complaints longer, tougher events will produce!

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They have also taken away many opportunities for people to actually see rallies taking place. The disappearance of the RAC as we know it is a classic case in point.

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Originally Posted by Steve Boyd

The key thing for me is media coverage and that must include free to air terrestrial TV. I don't believe that live TV is necessary. A well edited daily summary that tells the story would be better in my view. It works for the major cycling tours & worked for the RAC Rally in the days of BBC Top Gear Rally Report. If longer and tougher events with TV coverage can generate a feeling in the general population that rallying is something challenging & exciting then we will see another revival - but it will still be too expensive!

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It will, but at least each rally would again have a hope of becoming an event in the national sense.

So why did S2000 become so popular?
Since it did something must have been right with that class.

In my book it is simple: it sound like a competition car, it looks like a competition car and moves like a competition car.
It is difficult to drive, and separates the best from the second best.

Hmm, sounds like a winner.

Learn from that when finalizing the R4T class regs.."....
One key here is standard ECU, so the manufacurers cant make their own classes of the same car.......

If they are able to score with that class and keep the price right, then we will get a real World Rally Car.

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Originally Posted by Mirek

Is it accidental that WRC started to die after it was banned in regional and national championships? I believe it isn't...

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Yes, I would say that it is.
I think they never should have been allowed in National Championships.

But as you started to say, I will not seem like someone who does not agree with someone else.
But when we criticize the FIA, we must remember that they depend on making regulations which lasts for some time, if they are to enable manufacturers to invest in a WRC car.
And what direction the world takes, when we talk about the economy, people's interest in sports, how good the various sports is to promote their sport, how environmental thinking etc etc etc are things FIA must guess the same way as stock speculators guessing when they buy shares. All share speculators think they are very smart, but we can probably conclude that not all is.
And make good explanations in after time, are extremely easy.

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Originally Posted by Coach 2

Yes, I would say that it is.
I think they never should have been allowed in National Championships.

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How can national championships then be expected to flourish if, in terms of the cars used, they are distinctly second class?

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Originally Posted by Coach 2

But when we criticize the FIA, we must remember that they depend on making regulations which lasts for some time, if they are to enable manufacturers to invest in a WRC car.

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They seem now to be most interested only in what goes on in the FIA-sanctioned championships rather than looking at the wider interests of the sports under their jurisdiction as a whole.

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Originally Posted by navtheace

GpA was an excellent formula. When it was around, no manufacturer complained about not being able to put on a body kit. They rallied what they sold as the road car.

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This is slightly misleading and not entirely correct.
The 'road car' was actually the commercialised version of the rally car. The manufacturers had no reason to complain about not being permitted to add a bodykit as, when this was wanted, it was already incorporated into the design, and hence, the homologation.