Just when you let down your guard and start to think that the sport is heading in the right direction, the central planners decide that what we really need is more of their goddamn stupid ideas.

These would be applied on January 1, 2019 and include cost saving measures such as reducing the number of mechanics allowed to work on rally cars from 12 to nine for a three car team, and from eight to six for two car teams. There’s also a plan to reduce the number of test days per year from 55 to 42 [...]
Economically illiterate Moseley-era schemes.

and to reduce the maximum permitted special stage distance from the current 500km (which has never been used) to between 300 and 350km.
Why? Because some guy with more power than brains arbitrarily decided that all rallies everywhere should be around 300km long? As if the problem right now is too many stages.

To restrict tactical retirements at the end of a rally in order to fit a different engine for the next event, there are proposed changes as to when a retirement can take place, and the number of engines which can be sealed and available during a season.
Again, straight out of the Mosley school of managed decline. WRONG DIRECTION.

Another proposed change, following a dramatic incident in Portugal, is that a car must always have four rotating wheels at the start of a stage, effective immediately.
OK, now it's like they're trying to ruin the sport. No, seriously. What are they trying to accomplish with this? What effect do they think it will have on the appeal of the sport to no longer see spectacular scenes of broken cars chugging along?

It's just so frustrating to see this keep happening over and over, and the same people always put their hands up in the end and say, "It's no one's fault the sport is struggling! Young people just don't care about racing anymore." No, you don't care about racing anymore.