Someone is driving a car that is 3 times more expensive, much more powerful and way faster than all other competitors. Can it even be called sport?
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+1. With R5 we see much stronger competition in all countries, 20 R5 cars in national events are not exceptions anymore. Many of those can sell these projects to sponsors because they can fight for wins/podiums. Add a few WRC cars and many of those would disappear. Just watch the results of national events in mid-2000s, where in most places WRC cars were allowed, but too expensive to run in big numbers...
Remember that Finland and France have announced that WRC cars can't score points for the championships. Ypres is even arranging a separate competition for them.
https://www.autosport.com/wrc/news/1...ute-for-return
First time I've seen this mentioned, but alongside what we know about Mouton's opinion, a quote from "a source close to the event" that the rally will be around 500km. Presumably/hopefully that means 500km of SS, which would be good news! Still only going to use private estate roads though, which I fear will be different in character to the old Safari roads... I understand why though.
Was there always a National rally attached to the International Ypres rally? So long as he's not entered in the 'International' main event I don't see the issue. And if this attached 'Masters' National rally is new, nothing has been lost. It's essentially just a show event tacked on, the result of which will be irrelevant.
20 R5s in one event is not a rule, far from it i`d say. Look at a bigger picture (entrylists from ewrc for example) and the picture is a lot different. WRC is a sight to see on small events, for local spectators and it is a good thing. For sure, when Mr. Loeb drives a 2019 WRC in his homeland, he is quite a big attraction, how could it be bad? Same applies for Neuville in Ypres...and Tänak in Rally Estonia. They are one-offs, good for those fans who can`t allow themselves travelling around the world and see them in WRC action.
Other than that, you can talk about glory being taken away...or also talk about Oliver Solberg beating a 2017 Fiesta WRC with his Polo R5...
The Irish Tarmac Championship has always allowed WRC cars to enter its events, although the Championship points have only been for R5's since 2016.
There were/are many WRC cars in Ireland from the previous years and they didnt want them to become redundant overnight.
A good article on the aero development of the current WRC cars. Autosport Plus but at least right now free to read.
https://www.autosport.com/engineerin...formed-the-wrc
Interesting since the rules only changed for this year to limit the maximum length from 500 to 350
If anyone's interested, here's an hour of onboards from the 2018 event https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbWa0dhVqhw
Just as well as if 2 or more are driving cars with same attributes.
What I somewhat fail to understand here is that it's not like we're getting these market disruptors on each national championship. The 2017 machinery is anyway so expensive and so restricted for bunch of reasons, that it just won't happen. Instead, we're treated with likes of Neuville and Loeb doing the odd outing here and there, giving the events more exposure and bringing more fans than they'd normally draw. I.e. no-one's definitely losing here.