[WRC] News & Rumours 2021

[TheFlyingTuga]

No, but they had the opportunities - but they simply weren't quick enough. I don't have a problem with that.
Talent alone isn't enough, and never really was. It's a combination of talent, connections, money/sponsors - and even a bit of luck; in the right place at the right time.

I look at Blomqvist & Sainz; both World Champions who had sons who've followed them into motorsport - but not rallying; you've got more options circuit racing if your seat goes. Tom has done F3, DTM, GTs, and now a seat in Formula E.

Also Lundgaard's son. He is also in F2 and had won a couple of raced this year. I think making the transition from karting to circuit racing is easier because you can continue your career for more years. In rallying, you either exploit the driving age like Rovanpera or Solberg or you'll have to be on karting until you are 17.

[Tom K]

Finnish winter WRC round possible only in Rovaniemi. Fingers crossed

https://yle.fi/urheilu/3-11710167

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Like Ingram...?

Son-of but not of the same level at all. His dad was an amateur driver in national events and got him interested in rally. But he only helped financially with his very first cheap rally car and taking him to events.

After that Chris has won (junior) factory drives, prize-money & captured sponsors with his talent alone, to continue in the sport.

[bearclaw]

More new rules for 2021:



The latter probably is the reason why Rally Finland cannot run their 2020 route in 2021. They would have run 7 stages on the Friday afternoon.

With this new overlap rule, the starting time of the first car between two special stages should be at least 45min then?

I don’t like these new rules at all. It’s once again a step (or final step) that every wrc interary looks the same (2x2 / 2x3 / 2x4 format).

Is it allowed to have more than one “midday service”?

[AnttiL]

With this new overlap rule, the starting time of the first car between two special stages should be at least 45min then?

Yes I think.

Finland 2020 also had Kakaristo and Arvaja starting within 38 minutes of each other.

It's quite clear the new rules are demands of the All Live team.

[meh]

You want to see a lot of WRC2/WRC3 entries but to not have enough time to show time?

[doubled1978]

Yes I think.

Finland 2020 also had Kakaristo and Arvaja starting within 38 minutes of each other.

It's quite clear the new rules are demands of the All Live team.

Yep, and it makes sense for AllLive. I had always thought that part the reason they compressed the start times of the stages on a loop was to prevent spectator movements between stages. Spectators driving like lunatics on public roads to stage hop was a big issue on Rally GB in the past, I was one of them. These days it’s much more difficult, and being old and slow, far less appealing!

[mknight]

In last 15 years we have repeatedly seen that if you have money and/or the right motorsport background and start early it is almost guaranteed to get to somewhere around 5-6th place in WRC cars. (Matt Wilson stopped here, Novikov also comes to mind, Greensmith and Katsuta here atm).

But then the number of drivers improving on that drops drastically.

The first very difficult step is being able to fight for podiums on pace. (Rovanpera is somewhere around here now, Suninen also)

Afterwards another huge step is fighting for rally wins ( Mikkelsen here atm) and the next is having real shot at championship (Latvala finished somewhere just short of this, Hirvonen finished here).

All the listed driver names have had some of these advantages. But interestingly none of the champions since 2000 or so fall in this category imo.

[Jarek Z]

In last 15 years we have repeatedly seen that if you have money and/or the right motorsport background and start early it is almost guaranteed to get to somewhere around 5-6th place in WRC cars.

Is it really so? It didn't work for Anton Alen, Matt Wilson, Alessandro Bettega, Luca Tabaton, Evgeni Novikov, Antony Warmbold, Conrad Rautenbach... Hell! Even Nasser Al-Attiyah and Kimi Raikkonen, I don't think anybody can question their motorsport background and financial possibilities, also didn't make it.

[mknight]

Wilson, Novikov and partly Warmbold qualify for that (5-6 place)they are also listed in my post. Note the emphasis ... starting early and having money or family.

Al Attiyah and Raikkonen don't qualify for starting early. Out of the others I only ever noticed Rautenbach.