WRC Testing

[wyler]

You obviously have no idea how much more expensive, less value-for-money, and more unpleasant to work on for the team members it is, to go and compete on national rallies instead of running dedicated tests...

His point was entirely valid. What Turdfish propose in their latest podcast is madness. It should be the other way around, more testing days should be permitted (limit them to a number of fixed sessions in the year if necessary), but no current-generation cars should be used in national rallies. It's so much more expensive, and you can be sure that the teams will exploit that loophole to the maximum.

and then we can complain again about rally becoming a sport detached from the people!

ps: "less value-for-money" that's hard to belive for me, if you account also the pr and engagement of a real rally. (i was at some regional rally with official teams and the number of people there only for wrc car and official drivers was huge)

[AnttiL]

Entry fee to a rally could be like 1000 euros, while renting and repairing a test road 15000 euros. What makes running a local rally more expensive? I understand there are things that might be tricky like if you get a technical problem on SS1, you're retired for the day and all the effort goes to waste while on a test day you could just tow the car to service and fix it. And testing on one road has its benefit for comparing data, but then again running more different roads could also have its benefits. A test day could give you more kilometres, and a local rally takes more liaison driving.

I don't think we should ban testing nor running in local rallies.

[mknight]

You obviously have no idea how much more expensive, less value-for-money, and more unpleasant to work on for the team members it is, to go and compete on national rallies instead of running dedicated tests...

His point was entirely valid. What Turdfish propose in their latest podcast is madness. It should be the other way around, more testing days should be permitted (limit them to a number of fixed sessions in the year if necessary), but no current-generation cars should be used in national rallies. It's so much more expensive, and you can be sure that the teams will exploit that loophole to the maximum.

His "point" seemed to be that testing expenses don't matter much when the cars are 1-2 mil euro. That's entirely wrong.
Testing is the area where you can most easily use extra money to get extra performance benefit and it is really expensive.


Whether or not dedicated testing or running national rallies is more/less expensive is something else.

My point is that if you want to save money limiting testing is the simplest way to go. But it has to be done properly so that loopholes are avoided, cause teams always look for loopholes. (testing in large area around homebase, running national rallies etc.).

Yes if a team has lots of money they will always find an area where they can use it, but most other areas offer much less "performance per buck" and in most of them there are also strickt limits already (homologation jokers, engine freezes ++).

[ictus]

Entry fee to a rally could be like 1000 euros, while renting and repairing a test road 15000 euros.

Big exaggeration, you can get a 5km gravel road with safety and emergancy services on site for 2500-3000€, at least here where I'm from

[Fast Eddie WRC]

I found it interesting what they said that, despite PET testing, Neuville so often finds his car set-up bad at the start of events and only gets it right by Saturday .. by which time he is behind.

Also that testing can often be more like practice for the driver rather than testing the car.

[AnttiL]

Also that testing can often be more like practice for the driver rather than testing the car.

It should not be. It should concern two things:
1. Finding the setup for a certain rally/rallies
2. Developing a new part

[ouvreur]

Entry fee to a rally could be like 1000 euros, while renting and repairing a test road 15000 euros. What makes running a local rally more expensive? I understand there are things that might be tricky like if you get a technical problem on SS1, you're retired for the day and all the effort goes to waste while on a test day you could just tow the car to service and fix it. And testing on one road has its benefit for comparing data, but then again running more different roads could also have its benefits. A test day could give you more kilometres, and a local rally takes more liaison driving.

I don't think we should ban testing nor running in local rallies.

Even if teams can make the optimum arrangements for those local rallies, as they would for dedicated tests (unlikely - the best hotels are always booked a year in advance by national teams), the value for money is always substantially worse. As you say, even on a national rally, the maximum you can expect is 100km of running. Assuming nothing breaks - so worthless for experimenting with new ideas and concepts.

The biggest problem is, however, the fact that a team's different drivers can't all do a national rally on different days. They have to compete at the same time, or do different events. Either way, this either means teams being busy 51 weekends per year, or sending 2 or 3 cars (with the appropriate number of team personnel) to each event. Thus, significantly more expensive than a dedicated test.

So, it's for those reasons why I think what Turdfish proposed - banning testing and encouraging teams to compete in unlimited national rallies - is a really dumb idea. As usual from them.

[AnttiL]

The biggest problem is, however, the fact that a team's different drivers can't all do a national rally on different days. They have to compete at the same time, or do different events. Either way, this either means teams being busy 51 weekends per year, or sending 2 or 3 cars (with the appropriate number of team personnel) to each event. Thus, significantly more expensive than a dedicated test.

So, it's for those reasons why I think what Turdfish proposed - banning testing and encouraging teams to compete in unlimited national rallies - is a really dumb idea. As usual from them.

This is a very good point. Also it might not always be possible to find local rallies with matching roads to the following WRC event.

[AnttiL]

Big exaggeration, you can get a 5km gravel road with safety and emergancy services on site for 2500-3000€, at least here where I'm from

OK. I know nothing but I heard these numbers from someone who works in a WRC team.

[ouvreur]

This is a very good point. Also it might not always be possible to find local rallies with matching roads to the following WRC event.

Exactly. Even Otepaa and Kuopio are a compromise, and are only really useful for giving new drivers a bit more seat time.