Quote Originally Posted by ouvreur View Post
It's all the more frustrating considering it's the last round of the year. It's not like they need to wrap things up early and get the cars / teams back to Europe quickly, in order to turn them around for another event. The money to get them out there and back is already spent, another night in the hotel shouldn't break the bank.

Why not make it 350km... run an extra leg into the early hours of Monday morning in Japan (ideal for TV - 1:00 Japan time is 18:00 CET)... imagine these cars with lamp pods on, brake discs glowing in the dark, crews having to work hard until the very last moments, all the more exciting if it somehow ends up being a championship decider.

Instead we'll have a pretty bland Sunday, finishing before most of us have even got out of bed. Terrific. Doubtless the itinerary will be unnecessarily long and stressful for everyone working on the event to 'optimise' it for All Live, despite the fact that all but a 2.75km park super special will take place between the hours of 23:00 and 8:00 in Europe... which, whether we like to admit it or not, is where the vast majority of paying subscribers live...
They should make 300kms a minimum for long haul events and B) I'd make it mandatory to have night time stages on tarmac rallies, no dust issues, and in the winter with rain adding to the challenge would make it a proper event. Highly doubt that the FIA/Promoter will change that though, all they seem to care about is having permanent car numbers written on them, etc.