WRC future

[Mirek]

the steps forward are different.

during the group b era, teams would put their money on making more powerful engines or bigger aero, since there were big improvements to find there.
that created very powerful but difficult to handle cars.

No, that's not true. They made every changes which they saw as a step forward for having better stage times. Whatever they found to be an advantage (and allowed) they used. There were huge steps towards better handing such as placing the engine in-front of the rear axle as well. Audi insisting for long time on having the longitudinal I5 engine in-front of the front axle was a result of marketing decision going against the technical arguments. The tyre and suspension development was not sleeping either.

nowadays with much technical limits, gains are very small so teams put much money in creating cars with better drivability. there are no big inventions anymore, they will never find something that will give them 50 extra hp anymore, all cars are almost identical. so they go and test 50 different kinds of shocks to see which one will give them a 0,1% advantage.

That comes from the limits of the rules. When You limit the areas for the development all focus concentrates on them. That's normal.

and racing has never had much to do with the current technology. you don't see water injection, anti-lag, water cooled brakes, inverted shocks, sequential gearboxes, lsd, spoilers, ... on ordinary cars.

The racing used to be all about the current technology until the breaking point being possibly the late gr.B crisis. You can't mix the level of technology with stuff being used in stock automotive production. That is two different things.

it's all about marketing. the racing car has to have the logo, and preferably some looks in common with the car people can buy at their dealer. nothing more

That is true but it wasn't always like that.