[WRC] News & Rumours 2018

[Timmy]

100% fair. Sainz and Hirvonen lost titles to mechanical failures, and that was fair. Latvala's car killed itself three times in a row while he was in the championship fight, and that was fair. There was a dusting of snow on the stages in Sweden, and that was fair.

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What you are doing is comparing something that can't be foreseen to something that could be avoided by adjusting the rules.

I think there are a couple of things we are not giving the right attention

1) Rules does not penalize always the same driver, they penalize the first crew in the general ranking.

2) Rules does not penalize always the crew who open the road. As said before Monte, Germany, Corsica, Galles, Sweden with few snow and every gravel rally with rain are an advantage for that crew. It means that in almost 5 events out of 13 there is not a penalization. It is 40% of the whole championship, it's not exceptional.
The difference is that at these events nobody at the end of the road order is crying the hell out of him at the end of the stages.

3) As we all said Sweden was exceptional, in normal condition on gravel rallies the leading driver will sufer from road order mainly in the first 3 stages of the first leg. Friday afternoon is quite better and on saturday the situation is much more balanced. In 2014, Ogier was capable to win a lot of events with these rules, even Sardinia.

The fact that it doesn't always penalize the same driver is irrelevant. The fact that the first crew in general ranking, whoever they might be, is getting the short end of the stick is where the problem lies.
Albeit Sweden was an extreme case it did shift the focus a little to the bigger underlying problem in my eyes.
If there is something that can be done to improve the current system then it should be done.

To N.O.T - If it's targeted at me, then no, I'm not British. I don't see why it would matter anyhow. Is there a saying I'm not aware of?