You said it, they spent 2021 developing Rally1, Rally3 and Rally4 so no time and resources for Rally2.
My suggestion: hire Huttunen and make him develop the car.
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I was expecting they would confirm Huttunen in some way at this point.
Cool with 8 crews in MC driving in the new Master class.
Will be fun to follow the golden generation competing!
If things go well in Monte Carlo, we might see Freddy Loix (and Pieter Tsjoen) on more WRC2 rallies this year.
https://www.mtvuutiset.fi/artikkeli/...1496#gs.mnr39v
Suninen says that they start the WRC2 season later due to lack of spare parts caused by COVID-19. They also want to make good preparations and development tests.
Interesting. Erik Cais decided to bless his car before the new season:
https://www.facebook.com/erikcaisral...21496304613025
Some of you probably remember discussion about WRC 2 rules. So, the final outcome is that point 6.4.3 was wrong. Driver to be eligible to score Drivers' points can be registered by team or by himself. The later means that he can pay 3k euros, as in WRC 3 last year.
Suninen had said on Finnish TV that the chassis Solberg crashed in Finland is still under repair and that's one of the reasons they didn't start Monte (could also be related to lack of spare parts mentioned earlier or just busyness with Rally1)
After a 1st Rally, the new championship system for Rally2 seems better even if some things can be improved: the Junior and Masters championships does not mess up the global understanding. Could seem a little complex at the beginning but the comparison is clearer I think.
Some points could be improved:
- the Junior eligibility rule is a little too tricky in my opinion: I’m not sure comparing Gryazin or Bulacia (both 25th start in a R5/Rally2 in WRC and more than 20 in ERC for the Russian) with Cais (2nd WRC event and 12 ERC R5 event) and Munster (8th WRC event and 8 ERC R5 event) is totally fair. And, for example, Rossel has only 16 R5/Rally2 WRC évent (and no ERC) in career and he cannot participate, even if a little older; the same for Huttunen. But it’s always difficult to find a good rule to and, still, it gives an acceptable level of competition for the category with also Lindholm and Lopez to come and maybe others.
- the power stages point rules should be the same for all the championships, here is too specific (a rule for WRC, another for WRC2 and no point for the rest). Or at least the same for all which is not WRC.
Two things are quite useless but, as it has no effect on the global championship, never mind;
- the Masters thing, okay it helped to attract some drivers but I’m not sure it’s coherent with the development of WRC-3 championship and Rally3
- The team championship is useless (last year is a good evidence with Movisport win) but still, okay, it gives some visibility to a team such as Toksport so not really an issue. But, as Toksport is the only real team to play the game, the interest is really limited.
About Rally3, I’m still skeptical: as there is no young big names or good references and that this car is still below Rally2 level, it is really difficult to know what is the value of this championship; and when he wins the class, is he good or the others bad? And does his gap with Rally2 good or not? It was already the case in Rally4 to be honest but the difference was that there were more cars to compare and it was less expensive. So I’m not sure this more expensive solution is a good thing. Let’s hope it can succeed but I’m not sure of the principle.
The only positive is that it should help to have a very good high-level Junior championship in Rally4 in ERC as they cannot make WRC anymore.