[WRC] News & Rumours 2019

[Portimao]

Think he meant like the KERS system, where it gives an additional boost of power at the press of a button. That would then give drivers a strategy as where would be best to deploy it, like uphill sections.

Yeah, that's exactly what I meant

[Mirek]

on rally Sweden I heard something, that hybrid systems could/will be used on liaisons..

Most likely nothing has been decided yet, but ideas are being thrown.

If the system is about to be used only on the liaisons it will be nothing but a useless ballast on the stage. I seriously doubt such idea could ever pass through.

[NickRally]

https://www.autosport.com/wrc/news/1...in-hyundai-wrc

Loeb to contest two national rallies in Hyundai i20 World Rally Car

Nine-time World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb will contest a pair of upcoming national rallies in a Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC, starting with next week's Rallye Vosges French Rally Championship round.

[Rallyper]

https://www.autosport.com/wrc/news/1...in-hyundai-wrc

Loeb to contest two national rallies in Hyundai i20 World Rally Car

Nine-time World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb will contest a pair of upcoming national rallies in a Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC, starting with next week's Rallye Vosges French Rally Championship round.

Tarmac rallies?

[AnttiL]

Tarmac rallies?

Yes. Remember that this is old news, these entries were already announced some weeks ago.

[mknight]

Yes it's quite old news.
It's perfectly logical that they use Loeb for that, since it's on tarmac that the car lacks the most. (Finland is just one rally)

They did quite a lot of testing before Corsica and while Neuville and Sordo were prbly a bit faster than before, it was still on the level of 4-5th place on pure speed. Loeb was terrible (relative to his tarmac skills) and a few levels slower than the year before in C3.

But as far as I can see there won't be anyone to compare against at these two rallies so hard to say what they get from it. Maybe just "free" testing kms without direct time comparison. Though you don't need to look on times to see the typical massive understeer.

[Tarmop]

Yesterday-today some Spanish portals have started writing about Alonso-Yaris WRC-RACC. Not your usual reliable sources and wouldn`t expect them to be true, but like he said, stays in the TGR family, but not in the WEC team.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Quite many, probably. You have to remember, that nationals are nationals (= no longhauls, 1/3 or more shorter events with less maintenance, maybe, most probably smoother roads, due to the fact that there aren`t 10+ WRCs with top druvers tearing them, own crew etc). There is that money issue, yes, but if there is a market, the prices will come own a bit, repairs can be made (like today privateers do)...or run them in RX and replicate the aero.

So why are those running WRC's (in the UK at least) not running the 2016 cars ? Because even they are too expensive.

[Tarmop]

Well, if you put it that way, then I can ask you why does mr. Gross drive a private 17WRC in Estonian/Latvian nationals? There have been private outings of M-Sport cars elsewhere also, though they have been rentals from M-Sport/JanPro. All those 50 (+-1-2) Fiesta RS WRCs are also privateer cars now (+some DS3-s, I20-s, something else you said shouldn`t be happening ("all drive old Subbies and Focus`", that was, what you said I believe?)
Rally is expensive, no doubt about that, but wait a bit, let the cars themselves be cheaper (for sure, at the moment, being THE car, it is more pricey to buy-run).

[tommeke_B]

How are the cars themselves going to be cheaper? To buy, of course, but to maintain? If that car is new, or 10 years old, you need to rebuild or replace expensive parts every xxx kms. And as long as you're going to M-Sport or Prodrive, for revision and parts, it's going to stay extremely expensive. At least that's the experience from some people who have owned previous generation WRC cars a couple of years ago. There's a reason all those old WRC cars, S2000 cars and S1600 cars have disappeared so fast, they're still expensive to maintain, and for the same (or little more) running cost you can have a quicker modern car.

And a person like Gross isn't the norm... How many people like him do you have in Europe?