S2000 & Group N, The future of rallying?

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30th December 2007, 12:27
Mirek

Lousada: Oh, sorry, I made myself confused with other Swedish driver on Skoda - Lars Larsson I think (I don't know rallycross drivers very well).
30th December 2007, 13:04
A.F.F.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rover V8

but how long will they carry on?

Very good question.

I don't follow F1 much nor know much about the facts but I've understood that Toyota has had one of the biggest budgets every year. Frankly it shouldn't need that one guy in the office to realize how much they have spent to gain so little. It's obvious for all of us. :mark:

I'm pretty sure their success in WRC did way better to their status than crawling in F1 with ****ty car and ****ty drivers. :down:
30th December 2007, 18:55
AndyRAC

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rover V8

but how long will they carry on? Toyota aren't in F1 for the love of the sport, they're in it because their marketing department thinks the investment is worthwhile to help sell Corollas- If they carry on being uncompetitive, how long before some guy in an office in Japan looks at the figures and asks exactly why they're spending enough money to fight a small war to give the world the impression that they're not quite as good as Renault, BMW or whoever is curently beating them at the time?

Right now, the marketing value of F1 is worth the cost- as soon as it stops being- and it will- then there will be manufacturers looking to find somewhere they can spend less money and still get the marketing result they want. If WRC can bring down costs, and make itself more promotable, then it may benefit in the long term. You only need to look at the history of touring cars and sportscar racing over the last 20 years to see how these things turn around- in the late 80's there were half-a-dozen manufacturers in sportscars, and 9 or 10 in the BTCC in the mid-90's- or the manufacturers who've come and gone from the WRC for that matter.

If S2000 brings the depth of competition back, then I'm all for it

How does the WRC make itself more promotable? It's already bent over backwards for TV, and look, it's now a pale shadow of itself.
But I agree, more Manufacturers aren't going to join if the current levels of promotion are still in place, no matter what cars or how cheap they are. Put yourself in the place of a Manufacturer, what are you going to get out of the WRC? The TV and media coverage is terrible, and the TV coverage shown is awful, why honestly would you join?
30th December 2007, 20:48
L5->R5/CR

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndyRAC

How does the WRC make itself more promotable? It's already bent over backwards for TV, and look, it's now a pale shadow of itself.
But I agree, more Manufacturers aren't going to join if the current levels of promotion are still in place, no matter what cars or how cheap they are. Put yourself in the place of a Manufacturer, what are you going to get out of the WRC? The TV and media coverage is terrible, and the TV coverage shown is awful, why honestly would you join?

The sport has become a shadow of itself by becoming easier for TV, as a result, the TV is boring.

I would PAY to get 1.5-2 hours of real quality footage of exciting rallying (including long in car, virtual spectator, and heli footage) on Sunday night after each rally. Similarly, I would PAY to watch footage from rallies that were spectactular, like Sweden, Finland, the real Australia, and of course, the Safari.

Rally isn't a sport that lends itself to nightly recaps (at least not in a cost effective manner). Accept that, do small web casts each night (that are sponsored to help pay for them) on WRC.com that are free, and put together genuine quality footage and just show it all at once at the end of the rally. A true fan will know the results before TV could ever be broadcast (unless it were live) so we don't need to constantly be bombarded with stage time results, we want to see the action!
30th December 2007, 20:56
Tom206wrc

Yeah, but for you, Americans, for example, it's rather hard to follow the WRC without TV, as most rounds are in Europe, far from USA...TV can't be that bad and can be helpful if you can't go to assist the rallies by yourself :rolleyes:
31st December 2007, 01:03
L5->R5/CR

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom206wrc

Yeah, but for you, Americans, for example, it's rather hard to follow the WRC without TV, as most rounds are in Europe, far from USA...TV can't be that bad and can be helpful if you can't go to assist the rallies by yourself :rolleyes:

We've managed with Sunday night broadcasts, internet downloads, forums/news sites, so on and so forth for many years.

I've downloaded and burned to DVD every rally of the 2007 season, however, I have watched only 4 of them (Sweden, Norway, Finland and New Zealand). I haven't watched the others, not because I wouldn't love to still watch the action, but because the TV programs are so mediocore that unless the rally is over the top the TV show is underwhelming.

If the TV shows were better, I as a rally fan, would watch them, irregardless of a pre-existing level of knowledge of the results. Currently we have to make an effort to seek out coverage, but the coverage is not worth seeking out (although, that doesn't stop me). I think it is clear that if the coverage was better there would be more interest.

For cripes sake, isn't the WRC moving to pay TV in a lot of Europe right now. That is not the sign of a healthy series of events or shows. The current coverage is focused on reporting the event, this isn't working, if the focused changed from reporting the event to sharing the excitement I think viewership would go up....

Edit to add:
I also watched most of Germany on my laptop before I burned it to DVD while in my rental car waiting for stages to start at a US rally, so technically, I watched 5 rallies I suppose.
31st December 2007, 09:51
jonkka

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndyRAC

Put yourself in the place of a Manufacturer, what are you going to get out of the WRC? The TV and media coverage is terrible, and the TV coverage shown is awful, why honestly would you join?

In all honesty, those decisions are made - as always in corporate world - by uninformed senior executives based on recommendations prepared by almost equally uninformed sycophants. Besides being the official Dilbert-view, I think this is also major part of the reality.

In addition, internal company politics play major part, just see at PSA how Frequelin's persistence paid out by not only allowing Citroen to get Xsara T4 to run at all but to continue at WRC even after Peugeot left.

But back to media coverage. Since decisions are made by those who don't care about the WRC as a sport but as a means to an end (read: marketing) and since all decisions where understanding of the content is lacking are made using metrics. The only metric available is viewings in hours and eyeballs and if you look at the official WRC Factbook (prepared by ISC, the 2006 version is here: http://www.walesrallygb.com/document..._Fact_Book.pdf), you'll note that quality of the coverage isn't mentioned.

So, for all intentions and purposes, WRC is getting better 'cause it's being broadcasted to a wider audience? Unfortunately, no, and that is why I do hope for the change for better.
31st December 2007, 10:08
jonkka

Quote:

Originally Posted by A.F.F.

I don't follow F1 much nor know much about the facts but I've understood that Toyota has had one of the biggest budgets every year. Frankly it shouldn't need that one guy in the office to realize how much they have spent to gain so little.

I can't comment on budgets in that silly sport and I'd rather not know anything about it but there is one thing I've heard and readily accept. Participation in F1 is image marketing, merely being there is beneficial as it gets your name mentioned (much the same as for example being a title sponsor in olympics). It doesn't really matter whether you're successful or not as you get a lot of exposure by hiring drivers that are being interviewed often, even their personal lives detailed in women's magazines.

On the other hand, WRC is promotion of a single product of a company, not as much the company itself. That is the problem of all silhouette classes, corporate presence identifies itself very strongly around the car that is being raced and not the make of it. In the other words, WRC sells Focus, Impreza and C4, not Ford, Subaru or Citroen.

And guess which of these gets the big bucks, the image marketing or the product marketing? Does a "brand" ring a bell?

Quote:

Originally Posted by A.F.F.

I'm pretty sure their success in WRC did way better to their status than crawling in F1

How much of that iconic status was tarnished by the turbo scandal? Admittedly, it's over ten years since but so are their glory years of WRC too. And even if John Doe never heard of it and most fans have already forgotten, the Japan and top brass of motorsport community has not. I think it was a small miracle they did return with Corolla WRC in 1997.
31st December 2007, 10:21
cut the b.s.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonkka

How much of that iconic status was tarnished by the turbo scandal? Admittedly, it's over ten years since but so are their glory years of WRC too. And even if John Doe never heard of it and most fans have already forgotten, the Japan and top brass of motorsport community has not. I think it was a small miracle they did return with Corolla WRC in 1997.

I think a return to WRC was nessary to show they could compete in a 'straight' car, to have walked away in 95 would have ruined much of what they had achieved in rallying in the previous few years
31st December 2007, 10:39
A.F.F.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonkka

I can't comment on budgets in that silly sport and I'd rather not know anything about it but there is one thing I've heard and readily accept. Participation in F1 is image marketing, merely being there is beneficial as it gets your name mentioned (much the same as for example being a title sponsor in olympics). It doesn't really matter whether you're successful or not as you get a lot of exposure by hiring drivers that are being interviewed often, even their personal lives detailed in women's magazines.

On the other hand, WRC is promotion of a single product of a company, not as much the company itself. That is the problem of all silhouette classes, corporate presence identifies itself very strongly around the car that is being raced and not the make of it. In the other words, WRC sells Focus, Impreza and C4, not Ford, Subaru or Citroen.

And guess which of these gets the big bucks, the image marketing or the product marketing? Does a "brand" ring a bell?

Yes a brand rings a bell. Maybe I'm an exceptional person but Toyota's crawling year after year doesn't really brighten their image in my eyes. Their budget is something the reporters always remember to tell. So, put an Avarage Joe in the pit-line and he'll know who's hot and who's not. Of course I can be totally wrong. Maybe it's Panasonic which pay 90% of their multi-million budget and 90% of the F1 fans just keep on saluting Toyota of the job well done.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonkka

How much of that iconic status was tarnished by the turbo scandal? Admittedly, it's over ten years since but so are their glory years of WRC too. And even if John Doe never heard of it and most fans have already forgotten, the Japan and top brass of motorsport community has not. I think it was a small miracle they did return with Corolla WRC in 1997.

I don't think that status was any more ruined by a turbo-scandal than what happened at RAC -98 to Carlos Sainz. What they did with Corolla was however amazing and IMO they should put scandals behind.

But if it's the same pride what keeps them remembering that incident that keeps them in F1, then I don't know what to say anymore :mark:

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