We can talk down Rally2s and sing the virtues of hybrid cars with Frankenstein prototype bodyshells all we like, but has there actually been any talk of new manufacturers joining under the proposed new rules? That’s the key thing surely.
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We can talk down Rally2s and sing the virtues of hybrid cars with Frankenstein prototype bodyshells all we like, but has there actually been any talk of new manufacturers joining under the proposed new rules? That’s the key thing surely.
One advantage of spaceframe prototypes is that those don't need manufacturers for anything. You can make such class free to enter for whatever team no matter what relationship it has with any stock manufacturer. Again same thing what we have in Dakar or many circuit series.
I am well avare that it's something going directly against rallying herritage but at some point it's necessary to think about certain transformation to keep the sport attractive in the future.
The problem is that, apparently, only 2 manus are now interested on a whole new top tier category and having 2 manus is simply too short for any credible top motorsport series, as the WRC itself experienced on the late 00's.
Besides, there's urgency to bring the Hybrid label to Rally and the announced Rally2 mild hybrids seems to be a easy and cheap way to do it (for sure it'll take less time and money to adapt a eTurbo to current R5's than turn WRC cars into plug-in hybrids).
Btw, with a specific Rally2+ class as the main WRC category, manus would have the chance to improve R5's speed and reliabilty without hurting the prices and specs of the Rally2 cars used in national series.
I think we must be ready to give away some aspects of the sport we have now with the current cars in order to save the series. There's only bad choices, and we must choose the least bad.
Where do you get the impression that Rally1 cars will be slower than Rally2 cars?
True - and I don't buy the idea of R5+. If you make it different/upgraded, costs arise , it will be limited to a number of "selected" (works ?) teams, and i agree that then there may be no point in moving away from Rally1
It is either you keep it as is, with two well separated class, with tier 1 reserved for the happy few (whichever Manu wants to invest), or you "downgrade" to basic R5 (with eturbo if you want a green label) that everyone can afford. The championship is then mostly run for private / works-supported entries. In other words, it is either WEC, or GT3.
There is no point in debating "what could be". WEC at its peak with 3 full works team + multiple works teams running the second class (GTEPro) was awsesome. And so was WRC a few years back with 4 works team fighting tooth and nail. But today's WEC (with now only a single top team and a diwndeling number of works GTEPro teams) may give an hindsight of were WRC is heading is Matton and the FIA boys remain stubborn ...
There's no confirmation once running Rally2 (ideally in Rally2+ mode) as the WRC top category isn't still under consideration, but it certainly has a larger potential to attract more manus than Rally1 Hybrids now has.
MSport and Citroen (the C3 continues to be developed at Versailles and it's Citroen who's paying PHSport to run Ostberg) are already running Rally2 cars, Toyota is developing the Yaris and Hyundai and Skoda would get the perfect chance to promote their new models ('21 i20 and '22 Fabia), at least on a semi-official way (supporting top private teams).
Btw, let me ask you the other way around: do you really believe that it's viable to start Rally1 Hybrids with only 2 manus involved?