Rally2 (ex-R5) News

[RS]

That certainly looks and sounds like a step forward compared to the current PSA R5 cars.

Yeah, hard to tell much from one video but it looks a bit more 'normal'

[the sniper]

I didn't notice this hadn't been mentioned, but news that'll be welcomed by some, an article that was originally on Autosport last week but seems to have been moved to Motorsport News:

Citroen’s all-new C3 R5 will miss its Monte Carlo Rally debut next season because of an FIA regulation U-turn labeled ‘stupid’ by the team’s senior management.

The C3 R5 broke cover and tested in public for the first time near Castres in south-west France last week. The car was tested with a hydraulically operated paddle gearshift – but that Sadev system will never see competition after WRC Commission rejected the change from a manual sequential shift to the paddle.

The FIA pointed out to Motorsport News that the change was made in an attempt to contain costs for the existing R5 drivers, who would need to up-spec their cars to remain competitive. Citroen’s customer racing director Pierre Budar dismissed such talk.

“They decide two weeks ago,” Budar told MN. “Of course it will cost something for the existing cars [to take the paddle], but it’s not compulsory. And it will not bring any performance improvements, it’s for reliability and comfort.

“For us this is a big mess. We need time to redesign the parts. We have to reproduce prototype parts and then test these parts and this will take as much as two months. It’s sure that we cannot homologate the car when we wanted to.

“Before this we had the chance to have the car in Monte Carlo, but now this is not possible.”

Budar estimated the cost of adding a paddle shift to an existing car at around £3000, but the cost to Citroen to redevelop is considerably higher.

“The tooling, everything was done for this paddle,” he said. “Now we have to rework the hydraulic pump, redesign all of the electrics on the centre [transmission] tunnel. Because we have the paddle, we have the handbrake much closer to the steering wheel – now we have to move this to make space for the shift and the cost is big for us.”

The loss of the team’s opportunity for a high-profile launch in Monte Carlo is one of the reasons Citroen team principal Yves Matton is pushing the FIA for a change in its decision-making process.

Citroen team principal Yves Matton said the FIA’s cost argument held no weight.

“It’s quite stupid,” he said. “It’s making the price higher not to have the paddle. It’s a bit more when you buy the car [to have the paddle], but it’s cheaper when you are running the car.”

Positive test

Despite that setback, Matton said the C3’s first test had gone to plan with plenty of kilometres completed so far.

“That’s the important thing, every day the car has been running and doing a lot of kilometres without having to stop for any problem,” he said.

“We will continue testing and we won’t bring the car to market and homologate until it is at the right level to fight with the fastest; this will be somewhere in the first part of 2018 – but it won’t be January.”

Matton is targeting 20 sales in the first year from homologation and 100 in the car’s complete life.

https://www.motorsport-news.co.uk/?p=60102
Credit to David Evans, I wish he'd just do more reporting like this.

Quoting myself from June:

If pretty much all the manufacturers are working on next year now, surely it's too late for the FIA to change the regs now or do they just need to act fast? Or are the manufactures already aware?

I find the way this situation has been handled rather bizarre. I appreciate that rallying operates in a small bubble, but surely these changes should have been argued and officially settled long ago. Bearing in mind the number of new R5 cars in development, I don't get how they can be messing about with the rules behind closed doors with so little being known publicly, let alone officially, at such a late stage.

Are we to presume that they're also sticking to the 32mm air restrictor, which was also rumoured to change (increase) so R5 regs stay the same?

[Mirek]

André Oliveira posted an article from Martin Holmes about this FIA decision two pages back. Anyway I do agree that it si stupid to change it again when all team had it developped...

[the sniper]

André Oliveira posted an article from Martin Holmes about this FIA decision two pages back. Anyway I do agree that it si stupid to change it again when all team had it developped...

Woops, I missed that page! Sorry folks. Well at least the MN article is fleshed out with Budar and Matton's quotes and the news of the delayed launch.

[RS]

Are we to presume that they're also sticking to the 32mm air restrictor, which was also rumoured to change (increase) so R5 regs stay the same?

I would like to know this too..

And do we know if there will be a Peugeot version of the new C3 R5, or perhaps an Opel one?

If there is a restrictor size increase that could make the 208 even more obsolete.

[TWRC]

I would like to know this too..

And do we know if there will be a Peugeot version of the new C3 R5, or perhaps an Opel one?

If there is a restrictor size increase that could make the 208 even more obsolete.

Famin said this year that they want an R5 version from the new 208. That is supposed to debut in 2018, so R5 version might come in 2019?

[dimviii]

TGardemeister/TGS‏*@TGardemeister
Well come #178 our new born baby You will beet your sisters soon! #WRC #skoda #R5 #tgsworldwide

[dimviii]

Teemu / Rallirinki‏*@HartusvuoriWRC
Andreas Mikkelsen did a two-day development test for Hyundai i20 R5 in France over the weekend. They used gravel roads.

[dimviii]

KalleRovanperaRacing‏*@KalleRovanpera
Rally Di Roma has come to an end and so is my time with Peugeot!
Italian rally season has taught me alot!
Thanks to @peugeotitalia @Pirelli!

[PLuto]

It is quite interesting with the paddle shifts. I have heard in May or June that despite SOME manufacturers were hardly pushing, FIA was talking that they dont want to allow to use paddle shifts on R5 cars...