Quote Originally Posted by Mirek View Post
That's not true. It's only a question of rules. Countless rallycars around the world were built without manufacturer involvement.
But isn't that also a bit "historic" way of doing it? I mean, theoretically you could build new rally cars in your shop up to the existing homologation details, but who's going to develop the new parts and models if not the manufacturers?

In addition, the whole series is run on manufacturer money. The development, building and rebuilding of cars, the salaries of the drivers and all the other personnel, shipping the circus around the world. Making the cars less expensive is only a small part of that money.

It's difficult to see many privateers committing to a whole WRC season competitively, even if it was Rally2 cars...I mean, we don't see it currently in WRC2 and WRC3 anyway. It would also be hard to imagine seeing Sebastien Ogier or Ott Tänak pay for their drives instead of being paid.

In the days of tobacco and alcohol sponsoring we could probably still have privateer teams with no manufacturer support, but not today anymore...maybe one driver could get the support of Red Bull, but that's it really.