New top class is exiting, will they habe reliability issues or work perfectly out of the box?
As of now they look slower than 2021 cars, will they catch up in 2022?
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New top class is exiting, will they habe reliability issues or work perfectly out of the box?
As of now they look slower than 2021 cars, will they catch up in 2022?
Finally... mid-october.
I like the principle of maintaining 4 pure tarmac rallies including the two last one.
Still no American rallye...
Any rumors on the last tarmac rallye: theoretically not Ypres; the date looks like Germany but Barum would be cool.
calendar looks good, good mix, i'd like maybe a tarmac round somewhere between all those 5 on gravel but ok can't have everything
There are some very happy people just waking up this morning in New Zealand
Great calendar. Especially that NZ is back!!!
https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/new...-40953772.html
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It is Northern Ireland.
Confirmed here:
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/n...-40953772.html
Not convinced by the new formula of Junior WRC will work and it might be even worse than today: the cost is higher than the current version with Rally4 (at least 20% more from what I understand) even if it is logical as it is a better car.
And as the Fiesta Rally2 is maybe the Worst Rally2 car, it does not give that much confidence as a prize I think (at least, the ownership prize had given a new interest from drivers during few seasons before the new Fiesta Rally2 car has proven to be inconsistent).
Last point: as there is not that much Rally3 car in the market at the moment, it will be difficult for a driver to find one during the season for other rallies so he will have to switch between various categories.
All in all, I hope I’m wrong but I think it will be a massive failure. At least, the only positive thing is that it will give really interesting entry lists in ERC with a lot of competition in Rally4 for young drivers.
I think they should stop making various Junior Championships everywhere and change to create a really competitive ERC Junior Rally4 championship with the best youngsters and a really good prize sponsored by the FIA to help them to develop (example: a two-year WRC Rally2 program + one Rally1 outing or a two-year WRC2+ERC program).
They talk about going green and being sustainable yet they make the crews go the long way round twice instead of staying in the southern hemisphere. At the very least they could put NZ straight after Finland, and then you have a longer gap between the two trips, but seeing they're only separated by Spain, they could easily swap between the two (Spain & NZ) and go on straight from NZ to Japan, at least for the drivers and teams it would be less work (and more eco-friendly).
The service equipment will take weeks to ship from NZ to Japan. And even if there were no rallies in between, the drivers would still fly home (and rally cars to rebuild) in between. The European events use their own service equipment, so it doesn’t travel back and forth. So it doesn’t make a difference really to have Spain in between. It has been the same often with Mexico-France-Argentina sequence.
Only way to make savings to traveling is to have two long-distance events situated close to each other geographically, and link the cars, like Argentina and Chile 2019. Likely some drivers traveled home in between, some didn’t.
How many cars will each team field next year?
Can we see as many as 4-6 cars in some team? 3 works drivers and 1-3 pay drivers maybe.
Think the WRC want to avoid a public affair where NI once again fail to get an event together. So better to say TBA, rather than getting everyone's hopes up.
The promoter is desperate for a round in the UK but this NI event has failed to come to anything for years....., and it wouldn't surpise me if it doesn't again. Unless the Scottish government back an event, I can't see any UK round in the championship for the medium to longer term (NI will be a one off, if it happens at all).
My personal bet on Ogier program next year: Monte-Carlo / Safari / Spain
Monte-Carlo, no need to argue.
He seems to have liked Safari and quite far from WEC events.
I don’t see him doing a WRC close to LeMans, especially Sardinia.
For the last one, I would say Spain (or maybe Japan for PR but as it is the same day than a WEC event + quite uncertain with two cancellations in a row, would not see it as a first pick) as it is far from WRC events and not a rally he dislikes.
Not necessarily the best choice for a part-time driver (no big benefit from road position except the Safari but not that simple) but Ogier is not necessarily in this logic.
Only F1 & MotoGP of the major motorsport series have a round in the UK; other series have opted not to come here for whatever reason (financial/Brexit, etc) Raising the money for the event is surely a challenge - as the sport has next to no mainstream exposure. Why would you back an event that is invisible? The days of the old RAC are long gone; a lot of the issues are self inflicted, but people like to blame everybody else.
- Rally Estonia will be without the group system next year, you can go where you want and when you want, just like old days
- Tickets on sale before christmas
- Power Stage will be at Leigo
Leigo is near the Neeruti stage. Great to have a proper power stage!
Ford Fiesta Rally2 test to Huttunen?
https://yle.fi/urheilu/3-12153361
I think with only 7 paid seats available in WRC1 it’s entirely necessary to allow former top-tier drivers into WRC2, and besides they provide a good benchmark for young drivers trying to work their way up through the ranks.
Regarding the Fiesta Rally2, it seems some people dispute how good it is, although it’s pretty quick on asphalt at least. They could do worse than to take Ostberg who although it’s sometimes hard to take his whining seriously does seem to have done a good job developing and driving the C3 Rally2.
M-Sport are in a tough position with being a producer of all classes of rally cars from Rally 5 to WRC and the new Rally 1.
Having good driver's to develop and prove all of them for sales, as well as the WRC team competing at the top level is not easy, or cheap.
Afaik they were first R5 available.
Lately when others use a lot of money for developing Rally2s, MSport doesn't.
Instead they seemed to focus on being first in other classes like R3 ( and R5 previously).
Their current "troubles" getting driver for Rally2 development seems to be due to:
- drivers with lots of own funds use the best cars they can buy (see Gryazin, Lappi, Suninen, or Skoda drivers) or where they extra starts in competetive WRC ( Veiby last year, Solberg now, Suninen from Spain)
- former WRC drivers like Østberg or Mikkelsen go where they get paid
MSport doesn't seem to pay well (at all?) and the car seems to be behind on gravel (though competetive on tarmac and maybe even the best on wet tarmac).
They did that with the first gen Fiesta R5 which was even intentionally downgraded compared to the limits given by the rules just to speed-up the development and to take the empty market 1-2 years ahead of the competitors. Recently they rushed the Rally3 while undoubtebly they had to reshuffle some of the available people and money from the Rally2. Was something in the Rally3 sacrified for the sake of speedy introduction and taking of an empty market? I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised at all.
https://mailchi.mp/fia/jja3q9igfw-64...12pmcg-6491707
Some more information about next year's regulations, some stuff that I didn't catch (or just weren't there) last week when the calendar for 2022 was introduced.
"As a result, the Junior WRC3 Championship will form the WRC3 Junior section of the FIA..."
I see confusion where juniors are not included in the junior championship. This will happen if other manufacturers produce a Rally3 and it has a younger driver within 3 years, or if junior drivers just want to do one round and not the full JWRC package.
Could JWRC be in the style of best 5 from any 7, with M-Sport committing to an arrive and drive campus at every event? Unlikely. If it's a set 5 event calendar I again see confusion where Juniors driving a Fiesta on many rounds of their choice will not be included in the Junior classification.
OK this is not a massive issue, but the FIA and M-Sport should do better secret-handshake deals than this.
Wait what?
"A prize drive opportunity in a Fiesta Rally2 on four European rounds of the WRC3 in 2023 awaits the 2022 Junior WRC championship."
I'd like to know what is the AISC meant to be used for. I have spent quite a long time in a company developing such automotive systems, so it would be interesting for me to know for what purpose they want to use it.
FIA's own press release gives some more info:
Starting from 2022 the FIA Artificial Intelligence Safety Camera (AISC) will become mandatory in all Rally1 cars. This forward-facing in-car camera will continually scan the special stage and its direct surroundings, identifying the shapes and analysing the position of spectators in the environment, hence helping to supplement the work undertaken by the FIA Safety Delegate to address unsafe situations. The crew-facing High-Speed Camera (HSC) currently in use in all Priority 1 cars will no longer be mandatory but only recommended.
Source: https://www.fia.com/news/fia-announc...l-decisions-23