FIA Rally Working Group: the future of WRC and the rally sport

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Mirek, try not to get so offended that someone other than you does not know what you know and is merely putting out suggestions. This is after all meant to be a friendly exchange of ideas between like-minded motorsport fans, nothing serious. We are not the FIA working group so anything discussed here has no bearing on it at all.

I do however appreciate the knowledge you have shared here, it is all interesting information to find out.

Man, where have you been in past two decades? 90% of all 4WD rally cars produced since 2007 (first one to be Peugeot 207 S2000) have had no center differential. Most of S2000, all R5, all Rally2, all RRC, all WRC 2011. And yes, they do use 1:1 torque split for all the time except when they pull the handbrake for which there is a release clutch.

I genuinely find this bizarre to get my head round, but also fascinating info to find out. My understanding of a locked diff (sorry, it’s still a diff if it’s splitting torque) is that when turning corners the front/rear speed difference, as well as the left/right speed difference of the wheels would create unwanted slippage to the point of wheels ‘skipping’. It’s been a long time since my university days learning about powertrains and I wasn’t paying much attention back then clearly!

0,5 mm will add roughly 3% of power. Completely useless modification which nobody will notice. It's just an extra cost with zero benefit.

Best to just leave it be as I thought then, I don’t even have an issue with outright speed of Rally2s anyway.

The suspension travel is also a major safety feature. Why do you think we have had by far most deadly accidents with 4WD gr.N cars?

You assume that it is common knowledge that most deadly rally accidents are by 4WD Group N cars? I would like to see evidence of this being the case and the reason for it.

Welcome to 2005 and the initial S2000 regulations. Do you know what the clever heads in Peugeot found back then and what other teams immediately copied? They found that the mechanical central LSD brings close to zero benefits in handling over having no center diff at all and only consumes power via friction. Nearly all following S2000 cars had no center diff. The R5, Rally2, RRC and WRC 2011 followed suit. The center diff returned only when the active one was allowed again in 2017.

Funnily enough I’ve never worked at Peugeot Sport so no, I didn’t know this. Again it’s fascinating to find out that info, not widely available or reported to my knowledge.

Sir, you have no idea what you are talking about. Let's start with an explanation what sequential gearbox means. As the name suggests with such gearbox the gears can be changed only one by one in a sequence. It doesn't matter if you do that by paddles or by a stick, by hydraulics, electrics, pneumatics or steel wires.

Never said I did. Never claimed to be an expert. And yes I know what a sequential gearbox means, colloquially a stick operated sequential gearbox is referred to as a sequential gearbox and a paddle operated sequential gearbox referred to as a paddle shift - even though a paddle shift may also refer to an epicyclic gearbox or some form of automated manual gearbox with paddle shifters. But don’t let that stop you from getting up on your high-horse.

Six gears over five. First let me tell you that all WRC cars (with the only exception probably being the 2011 ones) have so wide power band that even 5-speed gearbox is enough to keep you driving in the ideal rpms. More gears mean more mass, more innertia, more parts, more complexity, higher price. The 2.0 WRC cars with super high turbo boost could use even 4-speed gearbox (and P307 actually did). The reason for using more gears in a WRC cars is basically only reliability because the steps from one gear to another are smaller and the gear shifting is therefore smoother. Anyway there are no mechanical problems with the current 5-speed geaboxes, so why going for 6-speed? For spectators such change don't matter, far majority of them won't notice anything.

With exception of the 2011 ones? So surely the Rally2s also don’t have a big enough power band for 5-speed? The 307 was the ONLY one to make use of a 4-speed box and its fair to say that didn’t turn out well.