Quote Originally Posted by djip View Post
Rallying's DNA is about diversity. Snow, gravel and dirt. Coping with dreadful wheather/poor road conditions (no safety car in rallying when it starts raining !). Amazing (and diffferent) sceneries. Multiple categories running the same event. Amateurs mixed with professionals. Etc ...
And this is still how it is in WRC. However, I'm sad to see mixed surface events being taken away again for the sake of expenses. In the past most of the South European gravel rallies were actually mixed surface, such as Portugal and Acropolis (in addition to Sanremo, of course).
So in the end, I understand that the world is so different then in the 60's, that the costs have skyrocketed . But the value proposition argument (no manufactuer wants to spend a lot of money on rallying those days) is a bit of a chicken and egg thing. And i am conviced that if rallying would forget about the boring "identikit" format, it could raise its appeal.
So long story short, why wouldn't the championship mix short and long events, fast flowing and slow endurance events ? Monte Carlo could be a bit longer with night stages (the "final night", arriving in Monaco at dawn is a PR's dream, isn't it ?). Safari, Acropolis, Turkey, Cyprus or whatever on the rough side (not necessiraly long, but having drivers managing their effort) and then the actual super-fast, to the second sprints. In this picture, a somehow extended Safari (400 ? 500 km ? No one is talking of 5000km anymore !) could then be one of the series crown jewels, as it is iconic. Inversely, some sprint events could be shortened. Corsica used to be only 24hours ways back then and god it was one of the drivers preferred event !
Yes, I'm sure we could have 300 km rallies and 500 km rallies run with the same cars and roughly the same budgets (my thoughts on that here https://itgetsfasternow.com/2018/01/...not-have-both/) But how much does this make a difference to someone who has a problem with rallies being too short or similar with each other?

Night driving is not really a PR dream. Today the point is to get social media buzz going on, with posts at the ends of the stages gaining exposure, and you don't get that in the nighttime. You only have people finding out the results once they wake up. Same goes for live TV, not much to see on night stages, and not much people awake to watch the broadcast.