WRC mainclass from 2027

[Humber]

My understanding is that Car/ vehicle manufacturers have fleet (over the range of vehicles they make) emission targets to meet at certain years in the future. (EU fleet CO2 emissions by 2030, for passenger cars to be a reduction of 55% compared to 2021 levels)

Very likely that European manufacturers of passenger cars are not going to be promoting their liquid carbon fuel burning models to meet the targets and avoid fines.

For this year, up to June 2025 Europe new car market sales are now slightly over 50 percent for sales of new battery electric cars (15.6%) combined with hybrid electric (34.8%).

The small shop race/ rally car builders can see that support is going to come from only a few manufacturers who want to continue to support the liquid fuels with their brand in motorsport.
e.g We have seen for a long time support for the TCR small car international track race category runs warm and cold from certain manufacturers.
Brazil, 2025 can get close to 30 new spaceframe cars on the grid for their Stock Car Pro series labelled as Mitsubishi, Chevrolet and Toyota.

If the FIA comes to the table the N5 category might be a (at least ) regionally (non large manufacturer) homologated budget class (rally field supplementer) as manufacturers do not care so much about a small number of liquid fuel burners at the back of a rally field, especially if the big brand manufacturers do not have to put any money into it and can distance themselves from the fuel race/ rally cars. https://www.gotothegrid.com/en/blog/...tive-to-rally2 (2024)

[WRCStan]

The British Touring Car Championship technical rules are interesting and derived from a need to have a wide selection of cars entered without huge development costs. There are specified transmissions & suspension parts like hub uprights and strict controls on engines, with the option of using a championship spec engine from a single supplier, if the car manufacturer/team doesn't have a suitable engine or doesn't want to develop their own. The bodyshell is from any suitable production car, but the bits underneath are closely controlled to keep costs down and the championship open. Could this work in WRC?

What about 'homologation' rules? Do BMW/Hyundai/Ford HAVE TO be involved with their makes? The only official involvement I see is our good friends from Toyota. Technical rules are kind of moot if this remains an obstacle in WRC.

[Steve Boyd]

What about 'homologation' rules? Do BMW/Hyundai/Ford HAVE TO be involved with their makes? The only official involvement I see is our good friends from Toyota. Technical rules are kind of moot if this remains an obstacle in WRC.

The cars have to comply with the "NGTC" rules that the BTCC organisers wrote in 2011. Unfortunately they are on a password protected site. There's a general summary here https://btcc.net/about/key-rules-and-regulations/ with a link to this year's championship sporting & additional technical rules. They doesn't answer your question but the web page does say:

The NGTC regulations allows independent teams to compete on a level playing field against manufacturer-backed efforts by keeping costs down whilst at the same time rewarding precise engineering and all-important split-second strategy.

So it looks like there's no need for a link between a team and the manufacturer of the car they're using.

There is also a link to a summary of the 2027 rules, here https://btcc.net/about/2027-technical-regulations/ which states

Firstly, TOCA has unlocked the necessity for the specific model of the car to be sold in the UK.

Clearly any current restriction the BTCC has about cars needing to be sold in the UK wouldn't be relevant to WRC but the principle of letting independant teams develop thier own cars and compete against manufacturers might open a door for the likes of Prodrive & Paddon to join MSport in the WRC. The only battle they'd then have would be budget, for which we really need WRC Promoter to do a better job of marketing the championship so that sponsors are easier to get involved.