Quote Originally Posted by AndyRAC View Post
Correct; they're a 'Premium' brand, and the WRC is not where their competitors are racing. Saying that, I don't think F1 is a good fit for them either.....

I'm not overly optimistic in any new manufacturers joining in the near future; what exactly is in the WRC for them that they can't get elsewhere?
Audi won’t join. Wrc just doesn’t have the roi for them to bother. It’s a shame, but rallying is becoming irrelevant and dare I say it a bit boring.
We are back to where we are about 15 years ago. Two manufacturers (and m sport) and it has all become a bit predictable. I love rallying but it doesn’t grip my attention like it once did.
For me it was the spectacle of watching cars you could go out and buy, from multiple manufacturers, with many drivers and not just a handful of cars and drivers as it is now.
I lost interest in the late 2000’s when it was just Ford and Citroen, and Loeb winning everything. I am losing interest again and don’t watch it avidly as I have been. It took 4 manufacturers and a decent amount of drivers to piquet my interest again about a decade ago but it just isn’t doing it for me right now.

And that is me speaking as a 47 year old, that has been interested in rallying for 40 of those years. Unfortunate the sad passing of Ken Block, but the way I see it is Audi were more than happy to throw some money in Ken’s direction and let him do some YouTube videos throwing an Audi around (or Ford, or Subaru) and he would get more interest generated through one video than they would get from running a factory team for a whole season in a championship that not many people other than avid rally fans really care about. Controversial and sad to say, I know, but formula 1, Le Mans 24hrs and even the Dakar rally hold more prestige. Making a drive to survive style docu series won’t change anything either as I have read suggested on here on a couple of occasions.