Quote Originally Posted by Mirek View Post
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.
No matter the way you look at it, the truth is that in Gr.N/A days you had a wide diversity of cars and you were able to prepare them in different spec levels, according to your budget; with Gr.R you’re limited to a few cars only available in manus specs and prices*, making harder for those with lower budgets to buy them. That’s crystal clear.

*ok, a few tuners can slightly improve manus specs, making their prices even more expensive…hurrah!