2022 WRC News & Rumours

[skarderud]

Agreed, or stop chasing manufacturers via the marques. Reading Wheatley's quotes, I'm again left wondering why they only want to talk to the manufacturer marques. 'A manufacturer's customer operation can support an entry' - and who might be the shining example of that?

Maybe it's time to quit the mandatory manufacturers in the WRC?
Today you can't even build a car and get it homologated without the manufacturers, several has tried to build R5's thru the years but hasen't been able to race it because of no interest from the manu.

In the 90's everyone can take a cosworth or a celica and build it to a gr.A car, i know the modell had to been build in 2500 ex and all that, but todays profesional teams (like prodrive, toksport, printsport) could build a car in rally2-rally5 at a same level as the manu's, and have own sollutions.

It's just a political question, the sport can't relly on manu's, they are not interessted enough and the lower classes has to be open for private teams to survive.

Sent fra min SM-G950F via Tapatalk

[skarderud]

Lol..

Total of massive THREE wins thru all the years.. (2 of them thanks to Ogier's off and Tänak's puncture)

Or, was able to put pressure on them so they did mistakes....

Sent fra min SM-G950F via Tapatalk

[krissucool]

Or, was able to put pressure on them so they did mistakes....

Sent fra min SM-G950F via Tapatalk

Dude, that level of nuthugging is just pathetic.

Ogier was leading by 50 seconds when he made a mistake at final stage. Tänak by 18 seconds with 2 last stages to go in Poland.

Unreal.

[AndyRAC]

'A manufacturer's customer operation can support an entry' - and who might be the shining example of that?

That's like the GT3 motorsport programmes; Porsche, Audi, etc all have cars entered by customer teams; Phoenix, WRT, Sainteloc, Falken, Manthey, etc The manufacturers provide support and factory drivers.

[WRCStan]

Maybe it's time to quit the mandatory manufacturers in the WRC?

100%

That's like the GT3 motorsport programmes; Porsche, Audi, etc all have cars entered by customer teams; Phoenix, WRT, Sainteloc, Falken, Manthey, etc The manufacturers provide support and factory drivers.

If that's his point he could enable it in Rally1, but I think he means more manufacturers with customer racing departments in house.

[skarderud]

Dude, that level of nuthugging is just pathetic.

Ogier was leading by 50 seconds when he made a mistake at final stage. Tänak by 18 seconds with 2 last stages to go in Poland.

Unreal.

Pathetic?

Unreal?

Please.

Sent fra min SM-G950F via Tapatalk

[Maui J.]

Maybe it's time to quit the mandatory manufacturers in the WRC?
Today you can't even build a car and get it homologated without the manufacturers, several has tried to build R5's thru the years but hasen't been able to race it because of no interest from the manu.

Totally agree. Waiting for manufacturers approval means so much red tape, so much debate amongst the marketing team to agree, so much 'is this the right look for our brand' etc etc. The reasons for not entering the WRC or just rally in general gets longer and longer.

Allowing non-manufacturer approved but fully legal/safety approved/correct spec R5s to run in FIA events is the way forward. If a company like Prodrive started making Renault R5s for example, I'm sure there would be great interest from privateers as well as national dealer/importer teams. I'm sure it wouldn't be long before we saw the GB Renault Team or the Norwegian Renault Team etc.

AP4 spec down in this part of world took off about 5 years ago. Within a couple of years there were AP4 cars from Mazda, Hyundai, Holden, Audi, Skoda, Suzuki, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Mini, & Ford. None of these required manufacturer approval, (btw you will see a bunch of these cars at Rally NZ in September). The market here in NZ and Australia is fairly small so the numbers plateaued quickly, but I'm sure in Europe demand for a similar non-manufacturer approved R5 would be strong. Especially if drivers secured backing from their local importers.

From here, if a brand is doing well in national championship events this would surely impress the factory to look more closely at entering a possible semi-factory team in ERC or WRC. Then from R5 cars they may be tempted into going bigger into WRC. Like we saw with Hyundai (2000), Suzuki (2007) and SEAT (1998) for example who played around in the smaller league before joining the big boys in the premier league.

What ever happened to the Mitsubishi Mirage R5 that Ralliart Sweden developed? What a shame this was never approved by Mitsubishi.

I feel the rules need to be relaxed, so at least we start seeing a bit of movement with new marques coming into the fold. It may not be at the very top, but it's a start.

[seb_sh]

Agreed, I don't see any good reason for which Rally 2 cars require manufacturer approval. I suppose they could request a certain number of cars to be built and sold with a price cap to avoid homologation specials, but other than that it seems the WRC keeps screwing itself over. In my opinion a more open approach will bring more variety, more competition and lift the championship interest. The key is healthy competition. Look at GT3, TCR, BTCC.

[rallyfiend]

Agreed, I don't see any good reason for which Rally 2 cars require manufacturer approval. I suppose they could request a certain number of cars to be built and sold with a price cap to avoid homologation specials, but other than that it seems the WRC keeps screwing itself over. In my opinion a more open approach will bring more variety, more competition and lift the championship interest. The key is healthy competition. Look at GT3, TCR, BTCC.

GT3 requires manufacturer approval for homologation.... I think TCR does too...

[seb_sh]

GT3 requires manufacturer approval for homologation.... I think TCR does too...

My mistake, i thought anyone could develop a GT3