Stupid rules in WRC cirkus or how to change for the better

[scn]

We could make it like the golden stage in cyprus. End the rally, stop the timing, award the points, give everyone new tyres and service, and let them drive as fast as they can without other worries.

This, with the reduction of points to 3-2-1, seems the most fair proposition.

[AnttiL]

So a golden stage would be the best of both worlds. Drivers have a reason to push on a stage, but the fight is more equal for everybody. And they can driver faster all of sunday, since they don't need to save their tyres.

I repeat: if drivers are in "no-mands-land" with minutes back and front or super rally, they have no reason to push anyway. Of course they won't drive road mode, but not pushing for stage wins either. This is a part of rallying.

The golden stage would split the excitement of rally win and power stage win into two different stages. And both would have to be televised.

For me one part of power stage excitement is that the extra point risk is included in the whole rally result. It's really extraordinary when someone wins the rally and the power stage, they are willing to risk the rally win for the extra points.

[denkimi]

I repeat: if drivers are in "no-mands-land" with minutes back and front or super rally, they have no reason to push anyway. Of course they won't drive road mode, but not pushing for stage wins either. This is a part of rallying.

The golden stage would split the excitement of rally win and power stage win into two different stages. And both would have to be televised.

For me one part of power stage excitement is that the extra point risk is included in the whole rally result. It's really extraordinary when someone wins the rally and the power stage, they are willing to risk the rally win for the extra points.

as i said, nothing can make drivers push on all stages except giving points for every stage. that's nothing new.

but you're missing the point here. the problem is that drivers cruise through at the speed of their grandmother to save their tyres for the powerstage, where they would otherwise just drive fast but safe as they did before. the fact that they can get more points by driving very slow has actually ruined a big part of sunday.

the powerstage splits the excitement anyway.

[AnttiL]

Yeah, I know there is no easy solution.

I tried to find earlier examples of this tyre saving thing. Ogier has seemed to attempt it in Portugal 2018 (having crashed on Friday). He finished 10th, 16th and 9th on the "normal" Sunday stages, won the Fafe first run but finished only 8th on the power stage. His tyre saving tactics wasn't enough because of the compromised starting position?

[lmmjvss]

Keep 5-4-3-2-1 for the power stage but pay higher points in the rally (35-28-25-22-20-18-16-14-12-10?)

[tommeke_B]

Why should tenth be awarded with nearly 1/3 of the points of the winner?

[focus206]

I don't see why we would need this "let's assign one billion points to everybody for whatever accomplishment they get in a rally". So we end up like NASCAR and their classifications with 5278 points per driver.
Already assigning points to the top 10 is generous, considering usually we have less than 10 WRC cars. To me, being faster than Rally2 cars is not good enough to score points, but I understand we cannot change the point scoring system every time, according to the number of WRC cars.

[WRCStan]

Cruising also happens because there just aren't enough kilometres on a Sunday AM. Usually this day is wasted and drivers go to bed on Saturday knowing where they will finish. More KM could encourage more racing but it could cement positions with growing gaps. It's also costly and with the trend being shorter rallies I would shorten Friday and lengthen Sunday thus moving the racing KMs and attack strategy.

Typical itinerary could be:
Friday AM: Shakedown/Quali
Friday PM, the initial charge: (20%) Perhaps a Power Stage as SS1 as a statement of intent, or one for the early evening TV in summer
Saturday, the battles appear: (40%) 2 loops
Sunday, settle or gamble: (40%) 2 loops

Either shift the existing PS to a later time or make the final TC and Media Zone a Sunday afternoon/evening 'live TV show' if it's required with the interviews and podium then and using the best highlights as action. I absolutely detest this notion that the championship revolves around a TV hour at Sunday lunchtime. Real fans can watch any stage live if they wish. Casual viewers wouldn't know if it was actually live or a repeat of 3 days ago. The idea that people are all sat at home on a Sunday watching the one TV in the house as a happy family and there's no internet, and once we've seen them on the podium IMMEDIATELY and stood to the anthem - we don't need to hear from, talk about, think about, read the news about WRC until the next event's power stage. Get ******* real. We've all got 3 screens, working all sorts of shifts and we're spread across timezones.

I'll also say points per stage will just create silly 50 stage itineraries to suit the local driver. Points per leg is much better.

There's nothing wrong with restarting but the penalty should be minutes/KM lost not 10m per stage. Nominal times are worked on /km basis so shouldn't be an issue.

[AnttiL]

I have understood the Power stage live broadcast is set to Sunday noon not to overlap with other popular sports (F1 later in the afternoon, football on Saturday evening). I could be wrong though.

It’s also good to remember the people who travel to the events, they want to get home before Monday. Some even would prefer rallies ending on Saturday (like a few rallies did in early 2010’s).

I wrote about this (just before COVID changed many rallies to be three days long) with interviews and collected quotes from drivers.

https://itgetsfasternow.com/2020/06/...in-three-days/

[WRCStan]

I remember the conversation happening when Estonia was brought in and that was a good re-read thank you.

I very nearly wrote Thursday to Saturday would work for me. I've been in the Service Park on Sundays and it gets dismantled and packed up around you, which emphasises the point that Sundays don't exist. A Saturday finish could make a more lively service park - not that Finland or Salou struggle. Do all the podium, pr and autograph stuff then, unless the drivers just don't want to appear after the last stage. But you can get the only flight on a Sunday at 5am!