[WRC] News & Rumours 2021

[AnttiL]

wasn there a rule from FIA few years ago that the rally cant have more than 350 stage kilometres?

Yes. Until 1996 it was 500 km, then in 1997 to 400 km and now to 350 km.

[mknight]

I would have to disagree. For example Rovanperä winning the power stage in Sweden 2020 was a big show. Also Sardegna had a very close podium in 2020. Power stages have been quite dramatic during the last four seasons. Maybe third drivers like Sordo sometimes get the order to just finish the rally, depending on the situation.

Manu points introduced for PS this year are meant to further improve the already pretty good situation.

[denkimi]

20 years ago they had remote service areas which allowed more stage kilometers. With central service setup WRC has now, it's not possible.

That's why i mentioned 2013. They could do it then, so service is no acceptable excuse.

What is this 5 days rally? Without COVID we would have a four-day rally, which is essentially a three-day rally since Thursday and Sunday are not full rally days. And that format allowed rallies to be 400 km long just a few years ago. But as the rallies shortened from 400 to 300 km the formats remained the same, only the longest stages were exchanged for shorter ones. To me this is not a big difference.

It is in fact a 2 day rally, streched out much longer for some reason.

Basically 1 day of local rallying and 3 days of short rallysprints. For a world class event thats pretty ridiculous.
A short day on sunday before the power stage i can understand, but all other days should have at least 100km's of stages.

[AnttiL]

It is in fact a 2 day rally, streched out much longer for some reason.

Basically 1 day of local rallying and 3 days of short rallysprints. For a world class event thats pretty ridiculous.
A short day on sunday before the power stage i can understand, but all other days should have at least 100km's of stages

I would say a typical rally has 140 km on Friday and Saturday, and 40 km on Sunday. That makes 320 km.

You must remember that in the COVID-19 era, with the tight budgets and with spectators limited or prohibited, they are running shorter itineraries for the time being where Friday is only a short day.

You keep saying that it's stupid to stretch a short itinerary for four days, but at the same time keep raving at Monte 2013. Look closer at the itinerary. The rally ran from Wednesday to Saturday, but all the days were only half long. Wednesday to Friday they started at 9 and ended at 15 or 17, while Saturday was run from 15 to 21 (with a 23 hour break in between SS13 and SS14). And Friday was silly with only three stages and a long liaison.

https://www.rally-maps.com/Rallye-Monte-Carlo-2013

[NickRally]

But Monte 1998 had only 359 stage kilometres People tend to think rallies were wwwwaaaaayyyy longer in the past, but really the difference is subtle.

Mid 1980's Monte not that far off 900 stage kilometres... Sorry Antti, couldn't help it, I know, very different world in those days.

[AnttiL]

Mid 1980's Monte not that far off 900 stage kilometres... Sorry Antti, couldn't help it, I know, very different world in those days.

Yeah, but it's only fair because the drivers only included 7-8 rallies in their championship programs, now they do 14

And if you go 35 years more back, you have 0 km of special stages

[AnttiL]

Kristian Sohlberg (former WRC driver, current rally coach) has started interviewing rally people on his twitch channel. This week he had Esapekka Lappi as a guest. The interview was very candid and informal with Esapekka lying comfortably on a couch, using even swear words in his talk, in a different way than speaking to media normally.

Some of the things he said:
- Skoda was not a nice team to be in. They were mad if someone had a crash and the bosses were very "hot-headed" always. He would never return to Skoda.
- Lappi liked Mäkinen as a team boss because he understands drivers, albeit his views based on his own driving days were sometimes outdated
- His all-time favourite teammate is JML
- His favourite foreign teammate is Ogier, very fair and open about everything.
- He didn't like Tänak as a teammate who was the opposite of Ogier, not fair and not sharing things
- Tänak also was the first to get new parts and updates in 2018 (just like Ogier was at M-Sport).
- He went to Citroen because he thought he would be their driver no1 instead of being driver no3 at Toyota. The offer was made in June 2018, he hesitated at first but then saw Östberg finish second in Finland and was convinced.
- He had problems with Citroen's front diff ramp which made the wheels lock under braking, causing understeer. However, this fit Ogier's style so the car was developed even further in this direction, forcing Lappi to adjust his driving style (and crash).
- In the summer of 2019 someone at Citroen "found" their first homologated front diff ramp from 2016, saying "no one ever got this working", but it fit perfectly Lappi's driving style, and the speed was back.
- He says he hasn't pushed as much ever in a rally as Finland 2019 or Sweden 2020. Compared to them, Finland 2017 which he won was just "pumping"
- He says that in "village teams" like Toyota and M-Sport you can just develop a new part and try it on, but in big factory teams like Citroen and Skoda, it takes months for the boards to agree on the plan before they can start making anything.
- He believes the C3 WRC with 2020 updates would have been a winner car in Rally Finland with the new aero and engine (which they didn't even get to test). In the autumn 2020 tests they were 0.5 s/km faster than the previous tests on the first run already.
- He liked Budar as a team boss because Budar understood the difficulties of drivers and always asked how they can help the driver improve.

However, my feeling is that he deliberately didn't speak anything bad about Toyota because he possibly aims to get a seat there one day...

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/908558664

[EstWRC]

hmmm, Tänak part is very interesting....

what i mean is that in "Tänak The Movie - The series" they both say they get along really well, just watched that episode yesterday and they got along really well. Ott says that he gets best along with Ogier and Lappi in the series but okay that was back in 2018 and maybe later than everythig changed

There Lappi also says in the beginning that JML is his favourite, but later admitted that Tänak is on the same line or they even get along better as the season went on.


thanks for the interview! very good insights

[djip]

And if you go 35 years more back, you have 0 km of special stages

Yes ... but then it was 3000km flat out, as road sections were just "impossible". Tour de Corse was 24hours non stop, full speed.

I know, i know, different times and as David Richards, who knows what he is talking about and can be "credited" with the cloverleaf / repeat stages format, said "people like to live in the past, but we have to look to the future" (or something like that ...)

[AnttiL]

Yes ... but then it was 3000km flat out, as road sections were just "impossible". Tour de Corse was 24hours non stop, full speed.

Yeah but in the 50's there wasn't separate special stage and road section speed anyway and the cars were just road cars. It was just fast road sections all the way.

As for Tour de Corse, it's true that the road sections were crazy in the mid-70's and it's said the drivers made pace notes for the road sections as well! Acropolis is another rally where most drivers had road penalties because the target times were impossible. But that's a completely another topic. You can read more about TDC routes in my blog https://itgetsfasternow.com/2020/05/...tes-1973-1995/ BTW the first ever WRC Tour de Corse had only 500 km of special stages. It was only in the early-to-mid-80's that they had over 1000 km.