[WRC] News & Rumours 2019

[Tarmop]

Well, less rally2 finishers probably, places where distances between stages and service are long would also suffer.

[sonnybobiche]

One or two days worth of hospitality. That might be a small cost for the factory teams, but its a big cost for everybody else who has to stick to a budget.

What's the point of having rally's last 4 or 5 days if they can easily do the same km's in 2 days.

One or two days of hospitality? How much do you think hotels cost vs, say, shipping a race car to an international event and back?

But I agree that they could do the current stage mileage in two days. The FIA just doesn't allow it, because it's the FIA.

[AndyRAC]

One or two days of hospitality? How much do you think hotels cost vs, say, shipping a race car to an international event and back?

But I agree that they could do the current stage mileage in two days. The FIA just doesn't allow it, because it's the FIA.

Exactly! Most of the Sunday mileage is so small they could do it on a Saturday night - in fact I wonder why they haven't allowed some events to do this to see if it works. A Saturday evening Power stage could work on some events.....
But, they straitjacket all events to finish Sunday lunch time, so don't allow it.

[GravelBen]

Point with the more expensive cars was that they should look more spectacular (power+wings) and they added center diff so that they are "safer".

When was the centre diff control ever about being "safe"? I thought their argument was that it gives more freedom to adapt car behaviour to different drivers preference.

[AnttiL]

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?

We will still see cars chugging along the stages when they have been broken during it. Three-wheelin' on liaison has been banned for a decade. Now the difference is just that you can't start a stage with three wheels. What Meeke did in Portugal was change in a tyre with only a wheel, no rubber, to save the deflating tyre to go through the liaison to service. This kind of trickery won't be allowed anymore.

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.

Show me a rally which has taken advantage of the 500 km limit and not just going near the minimum 300 km? Although, Monte, Mexico and some others have been between 350 to 400 km in the latest years, but it won't be much of a shortening for them still. And Monte does not have to obey any rules anyway

[sonnybobiche]

Three-wheelin' on liaison has been banned for a decade.

I think it was banned 2-3 years ago at most.

What Meeke did in Portugal was change in a tyre with only a wheel, no rubber, to save the deflating tyre to go through the liaison to service. This kind of trickery won't be allowed anymore.

And that's a good thing, why?

Show me a rally which has taken advantage of the 500 km limit and not just going near the minimum 300 km? Although, Monte, Mexico and some others have been between 350 to 400 km in the latest years, but it won't be much of a shortening for them still. And Monte does not have to obey any rules anyway

So again, why did they feel the need to pass a new regulation to make it impossible to have more than 350 km?

I know why. It's because they wanted to have a justification for when they bring back "Safari" and it's only 300 km long. "Oh yeah, we wanted to make it really long like the old safari, but these rules that we just passed forbid it, so it's going to have to be 300km going in circles on private land. Sooooooorry. "

[AnttiL]

I think it was banned 2-3 years ago at most.

Time flies. http://juwra.com/rules_2007.html

A small but important clarification is presented: during liaison (ie. road) sections, competing car must have all of it's four wheels intact. No more three-wheeling on public roads.

[Allez Andruet]

It's because they wanted to have a justification for when they bring back "Safari" and it's only 300 km long. "Oh yeah, we wanted to make it really long like the old safari, but these rules that we just passed forbid it, so it's going to have to be 300km going in circles on private land. Sooooooorry. "

Like it was ever going to be like the old Safari... Wake up.

[AnttiL]

A 500 km Safari would have still been a tenth of the Safari of the 80's.

[AnttiL]

Very second-hand-information as I only read this on another forum, but apparently a person associated with FIA has spoken today at the Finnish Rally Championship event radio broadcast that FIA is planning some sort of "virtual chicanes" for WRC, where the drivers need to slow down to 40 km/h on a certain area or something of the kind. If it's true, it's just...I don't have words to describe...