WRC future

[tommeke_B]

At FIA there seems to be a lot of lobbying from big companies, be it about safety equipment, tires, or the cars themselves... Car manufacturers will likely find a way to persuade people from the FIA why it wouldn't be a good idea to make the homologation of cars more available for private teams. Private teams aren't even allowed to choose their own fuel or tires, giving them the freedom to develop their own cars would be a drastic move...

[Fast Eddie WRC]

For me the 2022 Regs were the WRC Promoter trying to balance keeping the existing teams on-board, hoping to attract new ones and making the series more 'eco-friendly'... and they have only succeeding with the first part.

This being the case the 2022 Cars look like being a hugely-costly mistake, taking the sport nowhere and actually making its future even less secure.

[denkimi]

The debate was started in the 'Rally Bar' thread but it makes sense to bring it here: Should private tuners be allowed to homologate WRC cars in the future, once WRC cars will stop being based in production models? Wouldn't privately funded WRC cars help to boost the series, always short of manus teams? Is there any valid reason to keep the WRC as a manus monopoly, unlike most of the top motorsport series?

When everybody is talking about the need to evolve the sport, it's extraordinary how private tuners potential role in Rally keeps being forgotten.

they should have been allowed since always. everyone should be able to take the car they want and build it into a rally car. there is absolutely no reason why a constructor should be involved in that.

the fia has been holding the sport back for many decades now due to their stupid rules.

image if f1 would apply the same rules, we would have like 8 to 12 cars max at the start. we would not have seen the likes of williams, lotus or redbull.

[mknight]

At this time my view is that 2022 regulations were absolutely necessary to keep the sport alive. If they only kept current ones, I think Ford would withdraw any last bits of their support.
I would even say they are 1-2 years too late. I dare say that if they arrived 1-2 years ago Citroen would stay and Skoda would have joined. Both Citroen and VW have even been vocal about this.
COVID certainly accelerated the petrol->hybrid->electric transformation though.

The other options were:
- "simpler" cars with petrol engines. It was said multiple times that manus did not want this
- "more EV (like?)" cars. While it would have been possible (see Paddons car and the Skoda car), it would mean quite a big step to go from petrol only to full EV. Combined with COVID it would definitely lead to them being postponed a lot and we end up with WRX situation, where manus withdraw.

Keeping current rules was a very fast way to 2 teams and possible even less (WEC-like).

[Franky]

In the Dirtfish podcast, thin Quinn said that the sport needs to remain relevant. But here's a question. Relevant for who, the manufacturers or the audience?

Obviously for the manufacturers it means following the trends in production vehicles. But I'd like to argue that the audience is not as technically savvy as a few decades ago. Like who services a brand new Fiesta themselves? Not to mention an EV. And nearly all sports have become just shows/entertainment.

How should the sport stay relevant, if the two sides aren't on the same path anymore?

[AnttiL]

The debate was started in the 'Rally Bar' thread but it makes sense to bring it here: Should private tuners be allowed to homologate WRC cars in the future, once WRC cars will stop being based in production models? Wouldn't privately funded WRC cars help to boost the series, always short of manus teams? Is there any valid reason to keep the WRC as a manus monopoly, unlike most of the top motorsport series?

When everybody is talking about the need to evolve the sport, it's extraordinary how private tuners potential role in Rally keeps being forgotten.

I posted the same thing in the Bar thread but it's relevant to bring up here:

Rallying is different to most motorsports in the way that the cars need to be road legal to complete the road sections between special stages. The current rally cars are always basically a tuning kit installed on a normally manufactured car. I have believed this is a reason why rallying cannot be done on prototype cars, and also why manufacturers must homologate the rally versions.

I don't know how we could make a privately built prototype car (for example Prodrive Super Turbo Rally1) street legal. We can't assume every country can make a waiver to their legislations that non-registrated rally cars can be allowed to drive on public roads. Maybe someone who knows these things better could explain or confirm my doubt.

However, it's a different thing if we want to allow some other garage to be able to tune up a base model street car to specs of a rally car. At that point we come to the question whether some manufacturer allows their brand to be used as a modified version (like when you have a VW Polo Proto with Mitsubishi tech inside, you cannot call it VW).

Also, I don't know how the street legal thing is handled with the 2022 regulations when you can build a tubular spaceframe scaled down car which will only look like its street model, but be totally different on the inside. Remember, in Group B there was always a matching street model (with 200 cars built).

I also doubt that a private team would have the budget to develop a car from scratch and run a season with it. Manufacturer money is much needed in this sport.

[Franky]

Antti, using a production car shell doesn't make it immediately street legal. And in fact think that a rally car is so heavily modified that it wouldn't be allowed to be declared street legal based on the production model. Some Estonian might correct me, but believe that in Estonia a full roll cage is not allowed for a road car.

And of course you can make one-off or limited run of cars road legal, just costs time and money to go through all the procedures.

[pantealex]

What I have heard:

-Tommi Mäkinen was in favor of "R5 based WRC" even that Toyota doesn´t have it, biggest reason was/is safety. They still haven´t found way to make hybrid system safe. Remember that even TGR haven´t tested Hybrid car yet. Ask your self: WHY not ?

-Hyundai hasn´t started building their "Hybrid Rally1 22´) Ask your self: WHY not ?

This is all I know. Can´t answer to any questions about it.

I hope we have new machinery for 2022 but I don´t believe in it.

[AnttiL]

What I have heard:

-Tommi Mäkinen was in favor of "R5 based WRC" even that Toyota doesn´t have it, biggest reason was/is safety. They still haven´t found way to make hybrid system safe. Remember that even TGR haven´t tested Hybrid car yet. Ask your self: WHY not ?

-Hyundai hasn´t started building their "Hybrid Rally1 22´) Ask your self: WHY not ?

This is all I know. Can´t answer to any questions about it.

I hope we have new machinery for 2022 but I don´t believe in it.

Because the hybrid unit from the external company hasn't been supplied to the teams yet?

I thought Tommi was against R5 based WRC because they don't have an R5 engine like other teams

[pantealex]

Because the hybrid unit from the external company hasn't been supplied to the teams yet?

I thought Tommi was against R5 based WRC because they don't have an R5 engine like other teams

Both true.

Toyota has many different hybrid systems and have studied those but they haven´t found way to use those safely enough

Tommi agreed that current WRC is too expensive so something new must come...
Hybrid technology isn´t ready so he was voting for current "R5" as main class for 2-3 years and then maybe 2025 "Rally1 Hybrid"
And he said all this when TGR doesn´t have "R5"

Safety problems is "the KEY"
Remember that weight balance of car must be as low as possible, very hard to make safely with "up in the Ass of Timo" kind of stages.