WRC vs IRC

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Originally Posted by macksrallye

The only things that the IRC is missing is the name "World Rally Championship" & a couple of iconic events that the WRC has held onto (eg: 1000 Lakes).

The competition between drivers is better in IRC. The event formats are better in IRC. The cars sound magnificent in the IRC. The TV coverage is better in IRC (although I admit it probably doesn't reach as many people outside europe).

The WRC is too far out of reach for people to aspire to. Back in the late 70's & early 80's the cars didn't cost as much as transporting them around the world for 12 months, the same as in the GrpA era. The problem with the WRC is that the rules & regs mean that manu's & privateers need to spend stupid amounts of money to have a go. Even people with seemingly endless money behind them dropout due to funding (Novikov & Rautenbach anyone). Surely that should tell North ISC or what/whoever they are now that there is a problem. Wake-up, look at what the IRC have been able to do purely because people aren't happy with the WRC. It's about time rallying took a few steps back & tried again.

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Good post, I agree!!
Though to be fair, it seems that North One/ISC have finally cottoned on to this, however, I'm slightly concerned by the supposed cost of the S2000/ 1.6T cars.

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Originally Posted by OldF

In the issue no 1/2010 of Vauhdin Maailma there’s an interview with Tommi and he says he’s interested in running a WRC team and Subaru has a suitable 1,6T engine but that’s all. TMR has 2500 sqrm new facilities and at the moment they’re building about 20 Subaru N-group cars per year of which about 90% are exported. He also says that the “signals” from Japan also tells that Subaru will put efforts on group N.

A 2011 WRC will be a S2000 – 2000cc engine + 1,6T engine and a gearbox similar used at the moment in S2000 cars that can cope with the higher torque.

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I believe that if Subaru does anything it will be with its own operation, then getting somebody like TMR to support with customer programmes. However, their plans are at a very, very, very early stage - and they will not go back to Prodrive after last time.

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Originally Posted by oldf

A 2011 WRC will be a S2000 – 2000cc engine + 1,6T engine and a gearbox similar used at the moment in S2000 cars that can cope with the higher torque.

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Wait, so next year the WRC will be only 1.6t.... and SWRC will be the S2000 cars... (???)

So why you say that in 2011 both cars/class of engines will compete in the WRC as a whole? So that means the DS3 and Fiesta will change to an S2000 spec engine so they can compete rather than one with a 1.6t and the other S2000 spec? CORRECT?

Why the confusion!?

So next year the IRC will have more powerful cars?


I can see the IRC killing off the WRC in a few years time so that will ruin all the WRC statistics I guess.

As many seem to be in favour of the IRC as the WRC. Almost 50/50 I'd say.

But how can you enjoy a series if you cannot see coverage of it? The IRC is all very well and good being on Eurosport but the IRC won't and doesn't attract people who don't have SKY. Almost all TV's now it seems come with Freeview built-in so the WRC's coverage on Dave where they can see it is far more tempting than the IRC's coverage on Eurosport where they cannot see it.

Personally, I can see Jean Todt taking action and getting the power brokers between both series together, and banging heads. Both have good and bad points - put all the best points together and make the WRC a fantastic series........

....oh wake me up, I'm dreaming.

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Originally Posted by AndyRAC

Personally, I can see Jean Todt taking action and getting the power brokers between both series together, and banging heads. Both have good and bad points - put all the best points together and make the WRC a fantastic series........

....oh wake me up, I'm dreaming.

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Yes, but the tragedy here is that FIA pracically kill off S2000 as a class next year. I do not think that is the way to keep momentum for rally !

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Originally Posted by Sulland

Yes, but the tragedy here is that FIA pracically kill off S2000 as a class next year. I do not think that is the way to keep momentum for rally !

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We don't know for sure till it happens. Yes we will see slower cars because of the decrease from 2000cc to 1600cc and in horsepower from 360-340 to 270-290 but what I like is we could have mixed surface stages.

But in a press conference last year Max Mosley was quizzed once or twice on S2000. I don't know if this is important or is relevant to 2011 but just thought you may like to see the conference and look at the questions concerning S2000.

http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre...onference.aspx

Yes but this was from before they decided to go 1600T, and that no new S2000 with todays 2000NA engine would be homologated from 2011 onwards that will kill the S2000 cars of today, where many manufacturers have build cars. The first one, Abarth have jumped ship already, and we dont know how many will build a 1600T engine to rally on in 2011.

In my opinion FIA should continue the R-Class trail and complete it with R4 as a 4wd simple class, maybe the new 1600T, but a simpler version than R5 that will be the new WRCar, also 1600T. But this will effectively kill todays Gr N (N4) and S2000, that is no good either.

That is why FIA need to plan the new classes from R1 to R something, and implement from a given year - and to say that for 5 years this will be the case, to give stability.

Then IRC can from the same implementation year run with the new R4 class, so WRC can keep the top class for themselves !

So no more S2000 will be homologated from 2011!? So no more IRC?