World Rally Ranking

[N.O.T]

The WRC is no longer a place where most of the top drivers are. Currently big number of them drive in cheaper series (including national).

i can partially agree with that....but again it involves not the absolute top of drivers.....i cannot see any driver from any other series to compete with the top 4-5 of the WRC.

in the past we had bigger numbers of drivers but again the field was as narrow as it is now on the top...in the past we had many to compete with wilsons, villagras, rautenbachs and warmbolds...but the names at the top were 3-5 as they are now.

my objection lies in the word "TOP" you are using.....the top is in the WRC...

and again name a few that could be in the top of the WRC and they are driving in other series...most IRC guys are washed up WRC "failures"....and those that drive in national series when irc visits their countries don't do much.

[Tomi]

Why only five?

Because there cant be very many best drivers, the rest are already not so good.

[Raven]

i can partially agree with that....but again it involves not the absolute top of drivers.....i cannot see any driver from any other series to compete with the top 4-5 of the WRC.

And that's the problem. There are 4-5 top drivers. The rest is a background.
Top drivers from national series (of course not every) are aloso slower because they don't have so many tests and their season is half as long as those from wrc.

in the past we had bigger numbers of drivers but again the field was as narrow as it is now on the top...in the past we had many to compete with wilsons, villagras, rautenbachs and warmbolds...but the names at the top were 3-5 as they are now.

I don't agree. There were more winners (of course not many more), but there were much more drivers capable of fighting for the 2nd or 3rd place. Currently you have the same names all the time on the podium.

my objection lies in the word "TOP" you are using.....the top is in the WRC...

TOP in rallying is not the same as in football as JarekZ said. It also depends from the observer. Maybe I just have other definition?

most IRC guys are washed up WRC "failures"....and those that drive in national series when irc visits their countries don't do much.

I'm following wrc only to know what's happening and why Loeb didn't win, so maybe I'm under informed, but rather at least half of them didn't have a chance because of the budget and (in last years) small number of free seats? Some of them had failures indeed.

[N.O.T]

ok...so can i have some names please?

who are the drivers that would be ahead of Loeb, Ogier, Hirvonen, latvala,sordo and Solberg in the WRC and they are driving in local or IRC/ERC/APRC ?

[raybak]

You have to look at some of these WRC drivers who we say are slow. Put them in a national series and they are the quick ones. Look at Villagra, back in Argentina he is a national champion. Wilson may be slow compared to the top 5 guys, but put him in a national series round and he will go extremely well. It amounts to time in the seat as well. I know how much quicker I go when I've got a lot of rallies under my belt.

The only way to rank rallying is by a seeding list with coefficients for each event.

Ray

[Tomi]

You have to look at some of these WRC drivers who we say are slow. Put them in a national series and they are the quick ones. Look at Villagra, back in Argentina he is a national champion. Wilson may be slow compared to the top 5 guys, but put him in a national series round and he will go extremely well. It amounts to time in the seat as well. I know how much quicker I go when I've got a lot of rallies under my belt.

The only way to rank rallying is by a seeding list with coefficients for each event.

Ray

It depends in what national series you put them, the national series differs quite a bit, the better drivers from some national series can drive right away on par or even beat the fastest of the S2000 drivers, champion of some national series does not tell much, if it is not a respected series, that produces good international level drivers.

[raybak]

It depends in what national series you put them, the national series differs quite a bit, the better drivers from some national series can drive right away on par or even beat the fastest of the S2000 drivers, champion of some national series does not tell much, if it is not a respected series, that produces good international level drivers.

That's also right, different national series show different strengths. Here in Australia we probably have 3 or 4 drivers who would do well in IRC, especially Simon Evans who has proven how fast he is in a S2000. But as he has no performance against European competitors to gauge his speed he will get a crap seeing when he does European events.

I think in my spare time over the next couple of weeks I will put together a seeding from as many events I can get data from. See what it looks like compared to the world rally rankings.

Ray

[Jarek Z]

ok...so can i have some names please?

NOT, don't you think that such drivers from the past such as Henrik Lundgaard, Pasi Hagstrom, Stephane Sarrazin, Luca Rossetti, Cedric Robert, Nicolas Vouilloz, Jussi Valimaki, Janne Tuohino, Kris Meeke would do much better work in WRC than let's say Matt Wilson or Hennig Solberg?

I admit Loeb is an exceptional talent, that's beyound any doubt.
But, if you remember, both Solbergs, Hirvonen and Latvala were not very fast in their beginnings in WRC. They needed several years of competition and testing until they reached their current level. Wouldn't Tuohino do exactly as good or better if he was given a chance?

[OldF]

What coefficients would you give to the different championships if WRC have a coefficient of 100?

This is how I see it (there could still be some adjustments necessary):

Rallies valid for the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) = 100 (coeff. 15)
Rallies valid for the Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) = 67 (coeff. 14)
Rallies valid for the European Rally Championship (ERC) = 51 (coeff. 12)
Rallies valid for the Asia-Pacific Championship (APRC) = 34 (coeff 8)
Rallies valid for the Middle-East Championship (MERC) = 34 (coeff 8)
Rallies vallid for the African Rally Championship (ARC) = 34 (coeff 8)
Rallies valid for the Central America Championship (NACAM) = 34 (coeff 8)
Rallies valid for the Southern America Championship (CODASUR) = 34 (coeff 8)
Rallies valid for the European Cups Championship (ERCUP) = 30 (coeff. 7)
Non Championship Events (NCE) = 24 (coeff. 4)
Zone Events (ZE) = 20 (coeff. 3)
Reserved Events (RE) = 20 (coeff. 2)
National championships (NS) = 20

In parentheses IRDA coefficients. This is how it would look when using the same points for 1, 2, 3 etc. as IRDA.

1st (40*67 = 2680 points) in IRC -> 6th in WRC (2700 points)

1st (40*51 = 2040 points) in ERC -> 4th in IRC (2077 points) -> 10h in WRC (2100 points)

1st (1360 points) in APRC, MERC, ARC, NACAM, CODASUR -> 6th in ERC (1377 points) -> 17th in WRC (1400 points)

1st (1200 points) in ERCUP -> 2nd in APRC, MERC, ARC, NACAM, CODASUR (1224 points) -> 19th in WRC (1200 points)

1st (960 points) in NCE -> 3rd in ERCUP (990 points) -> 21st in WRC (1000 points)

1st (800 points) in ZE, RE and NS -> 3rd in NCE (792 points) -> 23rd in WRC (800 points)

The problem with this system is that a driver could gather points from two different championships if for example an IRC rally is also a national championship rally. To solve this problem the driver would score the points from that championship that gives the driver more points. And it would be even more fair if the drivers points would be the average of points divided by number of rallies participated.

[Jarek Z]

In my opinion your proposition looks reasonable. Although I don't understand why a non championship event should have higher coefficient than a national championship rally?