[WRC] News & rumours (part III)

I don't mind the current regs or the R5s but the problem with them is there isn't enough disparity with the body styles. Almost all S2000-based rally cars and the R5s are 3 door superminis. The only exceptions I can think of are the Fabia S2000, a 5 door supermini and the Toyota Corolla & Auris S2000s - 5 door compact (or whatever one size up from supermini is) hatchbacks. If I have forgotten any please chime in :D

I don't know if there is any way regulations could successfully encourage use of more body styles but surely increasing minimum size would help as otherwise the manufacturers are limited pretty much to only using superminis.

In an ideal dream-world I'd have something like 2011 WRC but with similar measures to cut cost as R5 but the body style open to 'prototypes'. By that I mean Ford may enter the championship with something looking very Ford-like but they can sex-up the body shape instead of making it look like a Fiesta. Toyota could make a car looking distinctly Toyota-ish with a 3 door coupe body and call it, for example, 'Celica GT-Four' even though the road car doesn't exist.

The cars would be interesting to the fans because they're not limited to whatever boring crap the manufacturer sells but they'd have the VW, Ford, Citroen, Hyundai, Toyota etc. 'family face'. It's like Group-B for modern times. I personally hate mentioning Group-B because it's silly to live in the past, but I think having a 'prototype' rally car is a fairly simple (please prove me wrong :D) way of making spectacular looking rally cars - without resorting to £250,000 homologation specials with too much power to be safely hurtling through a forest or alpine road with and fuel tanks mounted under the occupants and magnesium everywhere to light up in a ball of flames!

Dream world I know but that's just my two-pennies worth!

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Originally Posted by sollitt

Absolute nonsense. A formula like Grp4 or Grp A is simply that ... a formula. It can be applied/adapted to fit any era.
There is no reason why the sport could not adopt a specification that is affordable and accessible to domestic competitors and in which they can then step up on to the world stage and be competitive.
GrpN, in it's day, could have provided the platform but they wouldn't have been spectacular enough. S2000 & R5 are certainly spectacular enough and manufacturers are producing the hardware. The cars are affordable to buy but are they too costly to run? Something in between?

Rallyper is exactly right. It's not for manufacturers to come and change the sport to suit themselves. They need to apply themselves to the nature of the sport.

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S2000/R5 affordable? Depends on your definition of affordable I suppose... Without the need for homologations and homologated parts, cars of equal performance would be much much cheaper...

Just putting this out there so don't flame me but....

As costs are such an issue what about adding in many standard parts or maybe even a silhouette formula, even if just for the next few years?

Discuss..

no

end of discussion

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Originally Posted by AndyRAC

Blimey, DR had changed his tune. Being outside of the WRC has made him realise what is wrong with it. He actually said a lot of those things in January at the Autosport Show.
Live TV is old news, it's all about streaming on the internet.

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TV aims for the general masses, internet only aims for the current fans. Its the age old question, should I want 1 euro from one hundred people or 100 euro from a single person?

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And I actually agree about the cars; who honestly aspires to own a DS3, i20, Polo R....When I win the lottery, I won't be rushing to buy one of them, albeit they're nice, solid, reliable cars.

Is anybody brave enough to suggest turning their back on the hot hatch/ family runabout? And going for something more spectacular? I don't think they are. More of the same I expect.....

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Well lets be fair, who ever aspired to own a Peugeot 205 or Mini Cooper or Ford Focus? Yet they are supposedly all classic rallycars. In my opinion rallycars have always been beefed up versions of common streetcars. Rallycars that became streetcars like the Mitsubishi Lancer Subaru Impreza or Lancia Stratos have been the exception to that rule, not the norm.

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Originally Posted by N.O.T

no

end of discussion

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look your inbox Greg.

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Originally Posted by Lousada

S2000/R5 affordable? Depends on your definition of affordable I suppose... Without the need for homologations and homologated parts, cars of equal performance would be much much cheaper...

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I specifically asked FIA technical steward about this point. The answer was that they don't want to allow free supply of parts because of a) safety concerns and b) to protect business of those who homologate the parts. Take it as You like...

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Originally Posted by Allyc85

Just putting this out there so don't flame me but....

As costs are such an issue what about adding in many standard parts or maybe even a silhouette formula, even if just for the next few years?

Discuss..

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Motorsport is about the cars first and second. Look into a Fiesta R5 once and you have seen them all. And you have seen them all for the next few years because the development on R5's is minimal. And then we wonder why people are gradually losing interest?

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Originally Posted by Mirek

I specifically asked FIA technical steward about this point. The answer was that they don't want to allow free supply of parts because of a) safety concerns and b) to protect business of those who homologate the parts. Take it as You like...

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Well... at least they were honest to you about the real reason (the second)...

Maybe the best solution would have been to ban 4wd immediately when Quattro came, like they did in Formula 1 with Lotus...

It’s a little bit funny, but very popular national series are driven with old school technology, 2WD non-turbo cars. NASCAR is good example for the reason, that when the product is good, all the manufacturers want to be there.

My point is: When lot of people are interested about the product, the media and the money will be there also. And when there is lot of people, media and money, the manufacturers will be there also, for sure.

Media only can’t save the current situation. Capito’s idea won’t definitely save the current situation. Artificial respiration will keep the patient alive for a moment, but without big change we will loose our beloved sport like we remember it.

No need to change the original nature of the sport. But many people want to see, hear and smell something different comparing to their ordinary day.
Why can’t WorldRallyCar be 800-900kg, tube frame, RWD, non-turbo, max 3.0 litre engine with 10000rpm rev limiter and sequential gearbox silhouette car? Could be build by anyone, no mandatory to be an official car manufacturer.

Would you like to watch that kind of WRC cars?