Quote Originally Posted by Sulland View Post
What is not true?
It's not true that private tuners have nothing out of modern rally cars. There are plenty of companies making a lot of money out of the new cars. It's also not true that their engineering skills are disappearing. Absolutely not. Plenty of private companies do very hi-tech work with the new cars. When I speak strictly for Czechia and even for the most expnesive R5 cars most of the Fabias and Fiestas R5 here have engine from Vančík company, not from Oreca or M-Sport (even big teams like SRT, BRR or TGS use these privately-built engines). Many teams develop their own suspension (damper internals are free and Czech roads are very specific - for example standard M-Sport asphalt dampers usually don't work here). Pech's team even managed to get their own Mini RRC gearing homologated by Prodrive few years a go.

That you buy homologated stuff doesn't mean the work is done and there is nothing to improve. Quite the opposite, even the homologated car is just a base for further (albeit limited) development but the limits is what keeps the cost from spiralling sky high.