[WRC] News & Rumours 2019

[N.O.T]

For those who watch rally from "TV", electronic cars are real option. I can understand that. If you watch in-car video it doesn´t matter what kind of engine car have.

But if you watch it LIVE on stages then ...

Same thing about entries, if you don´t go watching rallies LIVE it doesn´t matter if Rally have only 30 entries but very few would go to foreign country to see 30 cars.

you are smarter than this... or maybe not.

of course it matters, TV is not only about images its about sound as well... what are you on about ?

same thing for the entries its different to advertise an event to the public with 120 drivers than with 30...

[Jarek Z]

Same thing about entries, if you don´t go watching rallies LIVE it doesn´t matter if Rally have only 30 entries

IMHO a rally with 30 cars is always sad, no matter if you watch it live, on TV or follow online results.

[the sniper]

I've met plenty of people that haven't moved on from the Mk 2 Escort/Quattro/Evo/WRX depending on their age. As for historics people still watch horses race...

You could be describing 90% of British rally 'fans'. But look at the lesson to be learnt from here, once the focus is on historic rallying, the lifeblood is drained from the contemporary scene and the sport becomes irrelevant...

[ToughMac]

You could be describing 90% of British rally 'fans'. But look at the lesson to be learnt from here, once the focus is on historic rallying, the lifeblood is drained from the contemporary scene and the sport becomes irrelevant...

The reason historic rallying is so popular today is not just nostalgia but flair and spectacle. That's still a very real thing from 30 year old+ cars with 30 year old+ technology.

[[WRCRR]]

I have followed rallying for over 35 years and one thing that is always a constant is that for factory teams most important things besides being successful are marketing and technology transfer. It has always been like this. Currently we are in a situation where 2 other major FIA series (F1 and WEC) have used electric power systems in some ways already for the last 10 years (WEC hybrids from 2008 and F1 first KERS in 2009 and later other systems as well). It must be getting more and more difficult for the manufacturers in WRC to justify the 100% fossil fuel based program's to their boards - especially if they are not even winning. On the other hand there would be very clear justification for electric/hybrid programs both in marketing (have to do what your competitors are doing) and in technology transfer (developing new technology in competition). Also, we have to notice that WRC is not the greatest advertising platform in the first place anymore, so the manu's have to already take this into account.

Then we have also fast growing Formula E with extremely strong manufacturer participation, it does not even matter if I or many others don't give a shit about FE - it is still clear that the manu's do, for the very reasons mentioned above.

Whether we like it or not there is a huge paradigm shift going on in car business, and motorsport as well. I sure as hell would like to see V12 engines back in F1 and WEC, and crazy fire breathing monsters in WRC. However, I also realize this is no longer possible for reasons far greater than a motorsport championship.

WRC will need to move on no matter how painful the change - or then choose the second road where there will no longer be direct manufacturer participation. Can a world-level championship be maintained without this - I let all the other great series that have fallen during the years after this happened be my answer. Look what happened to WRX factory teams when they made the sudden U-turn on electric cars....

There will be hybrid and later electric rally cars in WRC - the only question is whether this happen sooner or later. Currently as compared to many other series WRC is already late, I would bet on sooner.

[Jarek Z]

Then we have also fast growing Formula E with extremely strong manufacturer participation, it does not even matter if I or many others don't give a shit about FE - it is still clear that the manu's do, for the very reasons mentioned above.

It seems that manufacturers are actually the only people interested in Formula E. I have just had a look at Formula E fans forum and it is actually dead. There is just 1 post this year and last year there were 6 (six posts in the whole year!) and most of them say that this championship is boring as hell

Check it out yourself:
https://www.motorsportforums.com/for...p?42-Formula-E

P.S. That doesn't mean that I don't agree with your post.

[Rallyper]

@WRCRR Changes will come. But changes will not be without massive drops of interests from pure rally fans. Going some kind of hybrid like in current Formula One would be possible for a while I guess. And we´ll still have sound, but next step - going full electric will make the motorsport die a slow dead.

(Why doesn´t Formula One go full electric? I don´t follow discussions about F1 - what is the future about there?)

[dupanton]

I have no problem if WRC would become hybrid. It's a logical step and will not change much to the sound etc. The only have to make sure they limit the costs. It's already expensive enough...

[Morte66]

The problem is that the choice is not just to electric or not to electric. If they decide to go to electric, the choices vary between let's plug in a same cheap standard component for everyone to look modern, and let's give everyone freedom to spend ridiculous amounts of money for new solutions to really be modern. The range is very big and every manufacturer wants different. So the result will be a lousy compromise for which no one is happy and everyone will threaten to leave anyway.

Absolutely.

The question is: are they doing this for R&D, or for marketing?

Although pretty much everybody in all forms of motor racing talks about how it feeds back into car development, it seems most of them pay for it out of the marketing budget not the R&D budget.

I mean, come on. You can spend 30 million a year on a WRC programme and trumpet how rally Mexico improved your engine management at high altitudes. Or you can spend a million on testing a car in Mexico for a few months. If you do the former, it's marketing. But there are a few manufacturers who do look like they might honestly be in it for the R&D, at least partly, e.g. Toyota's hybrid program for WEC (Le Mans etc).

And when these clash... as you say, we get a crappy compromise.

We can only hope that nobody really cares about electrics, they all just want to be seen to be doing something. Then they can all have the same cheap standard hybrid unit to integrate, and it will keep the marketing side happy.

[Mirek]

(Why doesn´t Formula One go full electric? I don´t follow discussions about F1 - what is the future about there?)

Because nobody cares about Formula E and no fish drains the water from its own pond.