WRC future

[Oops!]

Their effort to look squeaky clean after their "diesel gate" fiasco a few years ago i'd imagine....

[Rally Power]

I tried to argue here that enforcing hybrids as new core technology in new tech regulations might not be motivating for manufacturers because by that time it is old technology aldready and carries little marketing value. Seems that VW is making this decision already now : https://www.thedrive.com/news/31162/...Pa5yd8x8o4u3ug

It won’t be a total ICE ban as VW America presented a couple of days ago their new program for next year Baja 1000, using the ‘good old’ WRC engine: https://www.thedrive.com/accelerator...2020-baja-1000

Btw, VW will plant 1000 trees to compensate the program carbon impact; it’d be great if instead endorsing full EVs in motorsport they plant a thousands more to return to the WRC!

[Fast Eddie WRC]

FIA to have back-up plan if interest in hybrid WRC 2022 stalls:

https://www.autosport.com/wrc/news/1...id-push-stalls

[TypeR]

So already before revealing new regs, they basically assume it will fail.. To me, Matton is the biggest ,,problem,, when talking about 2022 rules.. It has been postponed for so long, that manufacturers will soon run short of time with developing new cars..

Could it be that Citroen was the loudest about hybrid era cars and maybe ,,requested'' some certain things about the new cars? And now when they left, Matton/FIA has to rethink the rules..?

[Mirek]

So already before revealing new regs, they basically assume it will fail.. To me, Matton is the biggest ,,problem,, when talking about 2022 rules.. It has been postponed for so long, that manufacturers will soon run short of time with developing new cars..

Could it be that Citroen was the loudest about hybrid era cars and maybe ,,requested'' some certain things about the new cars? And now when they left, Matton/FIA has to rethink the rules..?

Don't forget that the manufacturers have to find compromise as well. It's not only an FIA game and since I have been working with car manufacturers for a long time I know that it can be extremely difficult to find some compromise with them, especially if it's more manufacturers who need to agree on something.

[Rally Power]

Don't forget that the manufacturers have to find compromise as well.

Very true. The unanimity on WRC ’17 rules was an exception as most of the times manus have different views and it’s not easy to get a consensus (it took ages to replace WRC 2L cars). In this case, Matton started by saying that FIA’s option would be a common spec low budget hybrid; later we get to know that manus would be free to develop their systems after a short transition period; now it seems Hybrids may not happen at all…

Matton ‘ultimatum’ makes one to believe that a figth over the new rules is going on. It’s not hard to imagine that Toyota is probably pushing for high tech in-house developed hybrids, once they’re used to them in the WEC. With current WRC costs being already an issue, as Citroen pull-out remembered, to allow expensive hybrids would be disastrous.

To keep current cars, as they’ve the wow factor the series needs, while adopting low budget hybrids (like other series are doing: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/m...logy-btcc-2022 ) is probably the most sensible option for WRC future.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

I like this from Colin McMaster:

What about R5+ ? MSport even made one once.

Put a full aero kit onto an R5 & open up the restrictor [and/or add a control-spec hybrid unit]
With the world’s best wheelmen on-board they would look amazing.

[deephouse]

Could bodyshell hold up, and safety? I think it's more complicated. But there are many engineers and 2 years time to develop that, so not a stupid idea at all

[denkimi]

They should just keep the current engines but give them all the name "hybrid".

The fans don't want or care about hybrids, and the people that do care about them don't care or know anything about the sport.
Just like ford named their engine ecoboost.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Highly-modified versions of my road car have hybrid turbo's !