M-Sport Ford World Rally Teams

[Fast Eddie WRC]

disagreement, you need to have top-speed driver for development. From where you'll get the necessary feedback?

Only at the end of the development would you need a top driver to get the last few percent from the car. A lot of guys can be trusted to do the basic work and testing mileage.

[mknight]

disagreement, you need to have top-speed driver for development. From where you'll get the necessary feedback?

That a driver manages to drive extremely fast does not automatically mean he can give good car feedback, especially on how car behavior changes with different parts/setup.
There are many examples where the opposite is often true, "second" or even "third rate" drivers are often better developers than top speed guys that just go as fast as they could all the time.

If you recall Breen after testing with Loeb in C3 (in 2018) was even surprised that Loeb would drive almost all runs on 90% speed and give feedback on the car and only do last few runs at max speed. For Breen it was at that point only natural to drive at full speed.

You only need the real top speed when you start comparing with other cars on rallies, which won't be before 2022. Another point is that these days the difference in top speed between the say 8 fastest drivers is very small in km/s.


Another thing is that the engineers have to actually trust the driver feedback, being a champion/multiple winner can give more authority but other things can do that too. Sometimes it doesn't matter who you are when leadership decides that you are just to pilot what engineers make (Nandans publicly stated approach, 307 WRC 4 gear gearbox..., C3 development etc.).

[Lancia Stratos]

Suninen also changing co-driver, probably for a cheaper alternative.

A cheaper alternative I'm sure, but Lehtinen's decision. He has other options in the sport.

[RS]

The 2022 cars are called Rally1, the top class is WRC until that

Shame.

'Ford Fiesta WRC' sounds so much better than 'Ford Fiesta Rally 1'

Even sticking with R1-R5 would have been better but reversing the hierarchy, although I suppose that would be even more confusing than the current mess.

[Andre Oliveira]

I prefer the new class structure. Same as Formula. 1 is better, 5 is slower...

[M3 Jambo]

Any news on whether the 2022 car will be a Fiesta or a Puma.

[Andre Oliveira]

Fiesta

[TypeR]

I bet the cars will still be called WRC, WRC2/R5 for quite a long time..

Stupid and confusing changes.. They should better work on 22' car rules.. it's already first week of 2021 and basically no news..
The series is called World Rally Championship.. not Rally1, rally2

Wrong thread tho..

[Franky]

I prefer the new class structure. Same as Formula. 1 is better, 5 is slower...

And 5th gear is faster than 1st gear. All about perspective.

[AnttiL]

And 5th gear is faster than 1st gear. All about perspective.

And the one who finished 1st was fastest