[WRC] News & Rumours 2018

[Myrvold]

I'll put this in this thread but it covers various subjects. Nice interview with Petter Solberg after Friday in Spain from UK Autocar. Talks about his performance, says that "I will definitely not compete in rallying next year" and talks about the future of WRX.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/m...ric-motorsport

Nice to see some British journalistic coverage from someone other than David Evans/Motorsport Network.

Things might've changed sliiightly over the weekend though.

[Francis44]

So once again, Sven Smeets clearly lobbying for VW, saying it is too late for an Hybrid WRC car. Interesting he doesn't mention a full electric option, but I guess he knows that would have some kind of backlash from the fans.

http://www.revistascratch.com/wrc/no...n-el-wrc-47068

Anyway, anyone knows when the discussions for the next set of regulations will truly start?! I guess it will be a interesting time for decision making with a sport which has been recently gathering momentum.

[mknight]

So once again, Sven Smeets clearly lobbying for VW, saying it is too late for an Hybrid WRC car.

He says it's too late because the technology is already in normal cars. Probably he means that "it should have been in the rules by now".

For the last 25 or so years I don't remember any period where WRC/rally cars had something before it was available on normal cars. Generally they are just following the current trend in the industry. Ex. S2000 when turbo were not in, then downsizing (2.0 to 1.6), direct injection etc.

Anyway it should be a no brainer to add some hybrid related to turbo/ALS. Electric turbo might be hard, but replacing ALS with small Electric motor should be easy, hypercars have been using something like that for years.

[Rally Power]

So once again, Sven Smeets clearly lobbying for VW, saying it is too late for an Hybrid WRC car. Interesting he doesn't mention a full electric option, but I guess he knows that would have some kind of backlash from the fans. http://www.revistascratch.com/wrc/no...n-el-wrc-47068

Not only motorsport fans, also globally people are slowly realizing that EV’s aren’t so eco friendly like manus and polititians are telling. Coal and gaz plants will still be huge electricity sources for the next decades, meaning EV’s can become more CO2 polluants than ICEV’s. Besides, there are also environmental issues concerning batteries production and recycling.

That’s why its tottaly demagogic to say it’s too late for hybrids, especially coming from a brand that only a few years ago was caught cheating on TDI Diesel emissions, a technology VW also promoted as eco friendly. If VW purpose is to get back to WRC in order to promote EV’s, I say, with due respect, to Smeets and his associates: stay away, the WRC is doing fine without you!

[Eli]

https://www.autosport.com/wrc/news/1...-loeb-for-2019

Loeb- Fiesta WRC-2019-maybe?

[kirungi okwogera]

Do you and mknight buy your crack from the same dealer?

"Cocaine is a helluva drug."

Ogier's just pulling a Rick James in that quote. "I'm totally cool with opening the road. Also it's totally wrong that I have to open the road so often."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC5LaHUnQMA

[kirungi okwogera]

https://www.autosport.com/wrc/news/1...-loeb-for-2019

Loeb- Fiesta WRC-2019-maybe?

I can't think of a single reason why Loeb would do this. Maybe if the Fiesta is hugely better than the Citroën - but it'd have to be enough of a difference to make him drop his employer of 15 years... no way.

[tommeke_B]

https://www.wrc.com/en/wrc/news/octo...pbQ1RIEG2WvNXY

You can now vote for the driver of the year on WRC.com. Voted for Tänak, despite the few drawbacks he had, the driver of the year imo.

[dupanton]

I'm a big Neuville fan, but voted for Tanak too...

[mknight]

Tanak deserves it the most this year, he took the step from a rally winner to a serious championship contender in one year. Most drivers take a few seasons doing that or even don't get there (like Latvala). Sure car also has something to say about that, but he did fine vs Ogier last year and was quite a bit quicker than Latvala and Lappi on almost all rallies this year.

Honorable mentions:
Neuville - compared with last year he took a big step in driver-reliability and knowing when not to push 110%
Ogier - was back to blinding speed in Mexico and Corsica, something many people doubted after 2017

None of the other drivers had a good season. Only Lappi had ok one but still after taking a win last year it wasn't really a step up.