[WRC] News & Rumours 2019

[Franky]

As it has been proved a few times, rotating events does not work.

[Eli]

IMHO, you need a few fixed Tarmac Rallies, i.e: Monte-Carlo (yeah OK I know it's with snow/ice but you get the idea), Corsica, Spain, Germany & now Japan. As for the other events, as suggested, rotate Rally GB around UK & Ireland so when it comes to Ireland, it will be a tarmac rally. Also you can put each year a different Tarmac rally- once (just throwing it in as an example) Bulgaria, another time- San-Remo, the next year Ypres rally, after that Barum Czech rally Zlin, and so on.

[AnttiL]

It's super exciting for us fans to fantasize with a different calendar every year, but in real life it's a tough job to put up the infrastructure for a WRC event. It works best when you can keep the same level year after year instead of building it up and tearing it down every year. Also many contracts (financial partners, roads etc) are often better when they are multi-annual instead of just a one-off.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Eddie it's big difference to seak money for World-level event (no matter the sport) and anything more local/regional. You can't automatically compare that. Of course I don't know the state of things in Northern Ireland but I can imagine that it can be actually easier to fund a big world event than anything smaller.

It's relevant here though as the Circuit of Ireland is the oldest and best known rally on the island of Ireland and the people are massive rally fans there. And yet it has struggled to continue, even despite being part of the ERC quite recently.

There is also the political situation in N.Ireland where power-sharing has broken down they don't have a functioning executive. I cant see their civil servants considering spending the tax-payers money on a rally (even a WRC one).

[Japé]

In rotation there is many limitations yes, but also many options how to do it. It does not meant that rallies would have to be year by year, but mix matching longer contracts in calendar we would reach fresh calendar for every year. It could be that agreement with some rally would be e.g. 5 years on, then 4 years off, then again 5 years on, etc. This way co-operation contracts etc would be easier to manage and forecast, especially when the rally would be e.g. national level rally when not having WRC status. Other options are e.g. that rally organizers (from key functions) would start to act more as none location based organizations, so e.g. when the rally A would be off from WRC calendar in next three year but there would be rally B added to WRC calendar to that position from neighboring country, this rally A organizer core team could take the key responsibilities from rally B.

[AnttiL]

It could be that agreement with some rally would be e.g. 5 years on, then 4 years off, then again 5 years on, etc.

You must also realize that it's impossible to make this long-term agreements with rallies. The whole series could change a lot in that time.

[Rally Power]

They were only now allowed to enter the cars to national rallies and France and Italy. Also the Ypres WRC parallel event was created for this year.
Although, Neuville already started Autoglym rally in Finland 2017.
Like I've said earlier, I see this as a positive thing, a chance for people to see WRC cars and drivers when the series doesn't run an event in their country (which is partially true in the case of Italy and France when their WRC rallies are hosted on islands). Just as long as they're kept away from the championship points, there's no harm done.

Hard to agree on that one. Allowing current WRC cars in national series is like allowing F1’s in F3 local championships; it simply doesn’t make sense. Even if they don’t take championship points, allowing them to get the overall win on a national event it’s a disrespect for drivers and teams involved in local championships, as it’s impossible to match the WRC car pace with a R5, which is the most balanced and well succeed category for national use. The only way I believe it’d be fair is to allow them to run on demo mode, without getting stage times or using the complete route (like apparently it’ll be done in Ypres).

[AnttiL]

Hard to agree on that one. Allowing current WRC cars in national series is like allowing F1’s in F3 local championships; it simply doesn’t make sense. Even if they don’t take championship points, allowing them to get the overall win on a national event it’s a disrespect for drivers and teams involved in local championships, as it’s impossible to match the WRC car pace with a R5, which is the most balanced and well succeed category for national use. The only way I believe it’d be fair is to allow them to run on demo mode, without getting stage times or using the complete route (like apparently it’ll be done in Ypres).

How much does a local event overall win hold value?

And on the contrary, think about the value a WRC car gives to the rally organizers – I've already heard one person say "I haven't gone to a Finnish championship rally in 12 years but I'll go to Riihimäki now that they have two WRC cars"

[Tarmop]

There will always be the richest guys doing events with a WRC, a bit less richer doing them in R5s ( again, like i said, there`s starting to be a huge difference among them also), wealthy guys in Protos or old A`s/N`s and poorer guys sitting out or trying it in 2wd. Local events are mostly for people enjoying themselves and will never-ever be equal, although they have different classes for all...

[tommeke_B]

How much does a local event overall win hold value?

And on the contrary, think about the value a WRC car gives to the rally organizers – I've already heard one person say "I haven't gone to a Finnish championship rally in 12 years but I'll go to Riihimäki now that they have two WRC cars"

It's different from country to country...

In Belgium we had WRC cars allowed 10 years ago. We had 2 people fighting for the win. Normally you could predict the complete top 5 correctly just because of the huge difference between the cars. Now without WRC cars destroying the competition, we have an average of 15 R5 cars in all BRC events, with more than 5 drivers capable of winning. All thanks to the more "reasonable" price of R5, and more equal competition. And of course thanks to having a good promotor. Most (if not all) top drivers in Belgium are driving only with sponsorship money, without own budget (or very little own budget). Right now most organizers have doubled the spectator figures compared to 10 years ago.

About the value of winning a local or national event, it's as big as the competition is. In Rallye de Wallonie few weeks ago, the difference between first and second was only 3 seconds. Last year in 5 of the 9 BRC events, the difference between first and second was less than 10s at the end of the rally. Closest win was Haspengouw with a 1,2s difference between Princen and Verschueren. With such competition, people are getting more excited and start following the sport more closely. Winning as only WRC car with 5 minutes advantage will be soon forgotten indeed...

For me it's a no-brainer, I prefer to see the WRC cars only in WRC.