Rally Portugal 2016

[ziggysony]

video from a fantastic rally portugal 2016 enjoy https://youtu.be/dlRPtzat48A

[seb_sh]

We all probably agree on the essential: current starting order rules aren’t needed anymore. They were made to limit VW and Ogier dominance but now competitors are clearly showing they’ve progressed and the technical gap that existed since 2014 is being closed.

Meeke and Paddon wins are no longer lucky wins like those of Neuville in ’14 Germany or the Scott last year in Argentina. In this year MC and Sweden they were already matching Ogier pace and that came as a surprise to almost everyone (including VW guys). After Argentina and Portugal there are very few doubts left.

The funny thing is that VW staff just can’t accept it. It’d be pretty simple for them to say openly the obvious: look, these rules doensn’t makes sense anymore because we’re no longer superior, our competitors have managed to progress.

Admitting this is probably too much for VW’s proudly German ego and ironically they’re hurting themselves by not doing it in a clear way. Instead they’ve come out with the 2wd lines issue in Argentina and now in Portugal they’re saying there’s a problem about random entries of top competitors.

It sounds ridiculous and almost gives us the will to see them suffer a bit longer, but honestly the rules aren’t fair anymore even for Hyundai and Citroen: with these starting order issues they can’t claim undoubtedly that their wins are a deserved compensation for their development work or their drivers improved skills, as they truly are.

When the rules won't be needed to "counter" VW and Ogier then with our without the rules Ogier and VW will not need to complain because others will be just as much affected. At the moment they still have some advantage but the rules bring them down among the others, that's why they are complaining more now than ever!

[Mirek]

I understand marketing is important and everybody wants to win, but this sounds more like lottery to me - everyone with few coins in his pocket can make millions by scratching some numbers.

You completely missed the point.

[Rally Power]

When the rules won't be needed to "counter" VW and Ogier then with our without the rules Ogier and VW will not need to complain because others will be just as much affected. At the moment they still have some advantage but the rules bring them down among the others, that's why they are complaining more now than ever!

Agree, even if it’s difficult to say they still have an advantage over the competition. Overall, it would be positive for WRC to have ‘14 rules back. The series doesn’t need to have this starting order issue as their main focus.

[wia5958]

Long and short of it its the rules. If vw and ogier are the only people complaining so be it. Most national and international rallys around the world work on a seeding plan best drivers and best cars on the road first and they still manage to win. Its only become a problem as the gap between ogier vw and the rest of the field has decreased. He can go after loebs titles all he wants but to me and im sure a lot of others he will never be classed as one of the greats due to his çonstant complaining if things arent going his way. There are a lot of drivers who have won less rallys, championships and held less records than ogier and theyl still be further up the list of greats for me than he ever will. Anyway lookin forward to sardinia where im sure we are going to see an angry frustrated ogier and this is when he seems most likely to make a mistake. Im just curious what the excuse will be

[stefanvv]

I think this hits the nail on the head. Basically you can talk about records before and after Loeb. Before if you won more than 3 rallies in a season you were hot stuff and the top drivers had around 25 wins. Loeb completely rewrote the record books. Now Ogier wants to emulate that and while he will win another title, he will not get 10 wins in a season so that's why he is complaining. All his career he has compared himself to Loeb and for him, so far, Loeb has been the only real rival.

Now regardless of Ogier, road order rules have kept changing back and forth so much I can't even remember all of them. The one we have now initially seems the most unbalanced but in fact it makes for the best show. It disadvantages the championship leader on some rallies so potentially tightens the championship and it sets up day 3 for potential come-backs from first couple of drivers who have been disadvantaged by sweeping. The running order also makes sense to the fans on the first days and then creates a nice crescendo for the TV Power Stage.

So yeah that's how I see it, I think the system is not so bad for the WRC. It's only bad for Ogier beating Loeb's records. Maybe others like Meeke and Paddon will start to challenge him so he can have something else to focus on than Loeb.

In reality you will never have a perfect system, as others have pointed out the difference between dry gravel, wet gravel, dusty gravel, snowy tarmac, dry tarmac, wet tarmac is so wide no system will ever be "fair". But rally is not about "fair" it's about adapting to the conditions and extracting the best result you can, it's about unpredictable things and it's about being able to put together a full season and win the title.

You contradict Yourself.

[stefanvv]

You completely missed the point.

No I didn't. Having random winner to satisfy someone is nothing but a lottery.

[Mirek]

No I didn't. Having random winner to satisfy someone is nothing but a lottery.

As I said You completely missed the point.

[stefanvv]

As I said You completely missed the point.

ok, I missed the point. And.... are the people happy?

[seb_sh]

You contradict Yourself.

Care to elaborate?