WRC main class in 2025

[wyler]

I don't think a manufacturer really gives a shit about the 385k fee to the FIA. If they do, they're not a serious company. This is a World Championship. It's never going to come for free.
Have you seen how much the FIA charges to F1 drivers for their SuperLicense?!!

honestly, it's enough to sell a couple of cars to raise that money! point is the same as always: it's not how much you have to pay. it is how much comes back (ROI)

skoda is not using a full factory team 'cause they don't need it to sell cars right now. no one is showing better results at the moment. if hiunday or toyota or others start to beat them constantly, they ll have to invest to show the car is the best, or customer will go away.

[seb_sh]

They are rich gentleman series

Apart from the 1/3 or 1/4 of the sometimes 60+ size grid that is made up of pro teams with pro drivers.

the bare minimum of media coverage on youtube

Full free live broadcasts of all sessions, including races from 1 hour sprints to 24 hour endurance with normal track side cameras, on-boards and commentary teams in 2 (sometimes 3) languages that include former formula1 or sportscar drivers. Replays and highlights available for free anytime as well. Compare to what WRC offers for 120 euros per year. The broadcast conditions are tougher for WRC, but still when you really compare it seems strange no? Even the WEC and IMSA put their full race replays on youtube for free a week or two after the race, including the 24h of Le Mans. I ask myself the question if it's better to get a couple million from tv rights or grow your sport/product/audience.

so the rich guys can show their mates and feel like proper race car drivers... Most of their races are lucky to get 200k viewers in total. And that's basically the entire audience....

I don't know specific spectator numbers but maybe you need to reconsider some things. Obviously it's a different business model in GT racing, usually teams have 1 or 2 "Pro-Am" cars with "gentlemen/women" drivers that bring budget fighting in their own subclass and 1 or 2 "Pro" cars with payed fast drivers fighting for the overall win. I think if you look closely there are a lot of "gentlemen/women" drivers in rally as well, who often bring sponsorship and sometimes support some young drivers too, especially at national level. In fact if you look in the history of motor racing in general, including rally, these "rich amateurs" have usually been one of the cornerstones of motorsport. I think it's a mistake to not consider privateers as part of any future plan in any category.

[rallyfiend]

Skoda and Citroen are not 'full factory' efforts right now because the parent company's have different motorsport strategies within their various parent groups (SKoda still feeling the hangover of VW dieselgate, and Stellantis in electric) and therefore they can't get sign-off for a factory effort.

But, they have enough funding to be able to run customer-focused (but supported) operations. So they can afford to run the programmes and pay drivers and for cars etc, but can't politically say these are factory teams.

We all know Skoda is really factory, it's just presented differently for perception reasons....

[seb_sh]

I don't think a manufacturer really gives a shit about the 385k fee to the FIA. If they do, they're not a serious company. This is a World Championship. It's never going to come for free.
Have you seen how much the FIA charges to F1 drivers for their SuperLicense?!!

Rally is not F1 (and that's a good thing). Actually nothing else is F1, F1 is F1, the sooner that is understood the better.

[Mirek]

We all know Skoda is really factory, it's just presented differently for perception reasons....

Actually it isn't. Had they have a real works team they would be stronger. That's a sure thing. And exactly for that reason it doesn't make much sense for people to automatically expect teams running Rally2 cars to join WRC if it goes Rally2+. Running a factory-supported team in a support championship is something completely different than to run a WRC team. The level of competition and the difference coming from the tinest details is completely different. They are not stupid and know that there is no chance a factory supported private team like Toksport could defeat Toyota or Hyundai in the WRC. Add to that the very fact that running a team which only serves the purpose of bringing numbers makes more damage to the marketing than not running it at all.

[Mirek]

Rally is not F1 (and that's a good thing). Actually nothing else is F1, F1 is F1, the sooner that is understood the better.

The whole thing is completely simple and SAME for any motorsport championship be it F1, WRC, MotoGP or Dakar. The value must be worth the investment. The higher the value of the championship, the higher cost is acceptable.

Don't forget that it goes both ways. A terrible product is never cheap enough.

Also by cutting cost you don't improve the product.

Now think about who is the customers. Is it poor privateers or rich gigantic companies? Which strategy will work for which group of customers? If you go to a sheikh will you offer him the best value for cost city hatchback or a Bugatti? It works the same way with the manufacturers. They will not invest in something cheap just because it's cheap. They need to see the value and only after that they will talk about the cost.

[Mirek]

I'd add a bit more to clarify my point. The problem of WRC today is not the cost but the lack of value.

Let's say our cost of today's WRC season is 100%. We know that the value of the championship is not enough to attract new manufacturers.

Now let's cut costs by whatever means. If we are very successful we may cut it to 90% (all season expenses included). Will the same value with 10% discount attract the new manufacturers now? I bet it won't.

So it's clear that what we need is to raise the value substantially. The million Dollar question is how. To be honest I don't know.

[seb_sh]

That's good point Mirek, it's not just about some cost/return ration but also about the total value. Personally I advocate in favor of privateers and more cars for some reasons like having a wider selection of potential drivers. But to clarify my position, I don't think the solution is found only in the technical regulations.

In fact there needs to be some overall strategy about the "product" of rally, the story you want to tell and so on. Then you can determine the details like event format, points, technical regulations and so on. I don't think there's any one element that someone can "fix".

[wyler]

to me, if there's a way, it has to be in the root core of rallying. and for me, the best thing to extract from there is the variability of it in any aspect.

rally is the sport in which you tackle unexpected and very diverse things. so let's make it the added value.
we can have very different power tech and try a bop to make it race together, (but we can think of it as tech in general, like 2wd vs 4wd). we can expand it onto the format, keeping some "classic" in the current format and leaving space for other proposals like 3/4 short/compact round as some drivers requested. i guess promoter can really ride the "adaptation" and "adventures" storytelling, as well manufacturers can have some spotlight for kinda everything they want to try. Somehow if there's wide range of condition or format, any tech/solution will shine somewhere, sooner or later.

[AndyRAC]

Mentioning SRO's products in the same context as any other motorsport series is an absolute mess.
They are rich gentleman series with zero spectators and the bare minimum of media coverage on youtube just so the rich guys can show their mates and feel like proper race car drivers... Most of their races are lucky to get 200k viewers in total. And that's basically the entire audience....

You are an ignorant fool....SRO series have been some of the best motorsport in the last 10 years. Take your WRC tinted glasses off for a change.....