2023 WRC News & Rumours

[Kenneth]

From PR talk it looks like it will be one year only rotation with Estonia.

[Jarek Z]

Jourdan Serderidis to compete in Malcolm Wilson Rally with Ford Puma Rally1! It's the first ever outing for a Rally1 car in the UK! Do you think he is going to win?
https://dirtfish.com/rally/wrc/serde...in-rally1-car/

[Sal yet again]

Fourmaux is already doing the event in a Rally 2 car but maybe yes! The rally is a round of the BRC however cant see anyone troubling a Puma from the prospective entries.

[Tauri_J]

From PR talk it looks like it will be one year only rotation with Estonia.

Wonder what they'll do with stages. They are super fast and very few crests and jumps. Already lots of chicanes installed for ERC rallies.

[AnttiL]

the rally is a round of the brc however cant see anyone troubling a puma from the prospective entries.

Remember it's Serderidis. In Otepää he was battling FWD cars.

[AnttiL]

Wonder what they'll do with stages. They are super fast and very few crests and jumps. Already lots of chicanes installed for ERC rallies.

Yeah. Remember that Rally Estonia used to be a similar "gravel highway" (not the NZ kind of) rally before they started preparing it for the WRC event with crests and fixing forest roads. And I would say Estonia is a really nice event as it is now. Liepaja is typically just super fast roads, long straights, barely any jumps, huge road cleaning effect, and then the small roads get rutted very soon.

But I had already several Latvian rally fans tell me on twitter that the roads are great and I just need to see them IRL to understand it I admit some of those high speed "flat minus" corners must be thrilling to watch standing on those high banks but a whole stage can't be just that, and the chicanes are not a way to solve anything.

[sinepikohv]

I guess Estonia is out then?

My bet is that Liepaja and Rally Estonia will be on a rotational basis. In '24 Latvia will have WRC and Estonia will have ERC. It's vice-versa in '25 and only time will tell how things will be in '26.

[doubled1978]

I’m all for new rallies getting a shot, I have enjoyed the variety the Covid years have given us in terms of events.
As a Brit, I still can’t believe the motorsport bodies in the UK have allowed us to get to a point where we don’t have a round of the WRC given the history. I support the N.Ireland bid and hope that it happens, but my heart will never be in it the same way it would be back in the forests.

[mknight]

Well in 2016-2018-ish there was a lot of slow gravel and a lot of complaining about adding more of that.

If we now get Estonia, Latvia, Finland and NZ are we going too much the opposite way?

Personally I miss more of the likes of GB and Chile with medium fast and slippery gravel. Om those there can be big swings between stages. Fast gravel is great to watch but without rain it often is the same story all weekend (road cleaning first, then minimal position changes and tiny differences).

[AnttiL]

Well in 2016-2018-ish there was a lot of slow gravel and a lot of complaining about adding more of that.

If we now get Estonia, Latvia, Finland and NZ are we going too much the opposite way?

Personally I miss more of the likes of GB and Chile with medium fast and slippery gravel. Om those there can be big swings between stages. Fast gravel is great to watch but without rain it often is the same story all weekend (road cleaning first, then minimal position changes and tiny differences).

NZ isn't really that fast, at least half of it is technical and slow, kind of like Chile and GB or even Portugal. Even Mexico will have some fast bits.

I can only assume Estonia and Latvia are not run same year.