2023 WRC News & Rumours

[mknight]

Recently we had tire competition with DMACK 2014-2017 and before that with Pirelli until end of 2006.

The overall effect wasn't positive.

Yes you had some positive effect like DMACK paying for Tanak's and in 2017 Evans starts but overall it reduced the competition.

The reason was that one tire was always significantly better in one set of conditions. To the point that it got boring.

DMACK made the tire better on wet+cold gravel, so in GB you had one rally for DMAC(Evans) and one for others.
Before that Michelin was much better on dry tarmac so Pirelli (Subarus) were basically always on last places on tarmac. When it rain d Pirelli was much better, so every stage was Subaru 1-2.

Thing is tire manus even did this on purpose (certainly DMACK did). Making their tires much better in specific conditions to guarantee a good result on at least one rally, rather then trying to match overall.

In a field with too few cars, this kind of "automatic" differences made for an even narrower field and fewer close fights.

[Andre Oliveira]

At least in WRC2 we lost the competition. Why they oblige one/two round teams to use Pirelli? That's non sense.

[AMSS]

Recently we had tire competition with DMACK 2014-2017 and before that with Pirelli until end of 2006.

The overall effect wasn't positive.

Yes you had some positive effect like DMACK paying for Tanak's and in 2017 Evans starts but overall it reduced the competition.

The reason was that one tire was always significantly better in one set of conditions. To the point that it got boring.

DMACK made the tire better on wet+cold gravel, so in GB you had one rally for DMAC(Evans) and one for others.
Before that Michelin was much better on dry tarmac so Pirelli (Subarus) were basically always on last places on tarmac. When it rain d Pirelli was much better, so every stage was Subaru 1-2.

Thing is tire manus even did this on purpose (certainly DMACK did). Making their tires much better in specific conditions to guarantee a good result on at least one rally, rather then trying to match overall.

In a field with too few cars, this kind of "automatic" differences made for an even narrower field and fewer close fights.

There is another side of this as well, the manufactorers especially in F1 when they had Bridgestone and Michelin at the same time weren`t too excited because at the the post race press reports they spoke more about if the winner was on Bridgestone or Michelin, not if the winner was a Ferrari or a Renault as example, especially the Rally 1 teams might be worried about this. The tire manufactorers again would probably love this (at least the winners)

[Andre Oliveira]

I like when Michelin and now Pirelli commemorate the x win in WRC. They run alone... what stat is relevant?

[EstWRC]

As always every year during rally Finland the rumors start

Ogier or Evans to Hyundai?

https://www.rallye-magazin.de/wrc/ar...medium=twitter

[mknight]

They seem certain Hyundai wants 4 cars? Or do they mean 4 drivers changing in 3 cars like now?

Hyundai has 3 "problems":
- 3rd car
Is Suninen a good longer term solution? (too early to tell) if so paired with Sordo or even alone? Is Sordo still good enough? ( It looked like that in Portugal but since then it was quite bad again.)

- Title candidate that can challenge Rovanpera.
Neuville imo just isn't up for it. They can hope Lappi improves further and becomes one.

- Young driver with good potential. Imo Lindholm is not the one. He ended in Hyundai mostly because nobody better (Solberg or Pajari) was interested.

Ogier would fit in the 3rd car, pairing with Suninen, or for title challenge, but I kinda doubt he is interested in that. Evans would fit as fulltime "3rd" car.

Toyota has a potential problem though. Katsuta is not good enough for 3rd car. I thought Solberg would go there, but lately Pajari seems more likely (full season Rally2 and some Rally1 starts). If Toyota then loses one of Ogier/Evans , manu title starts to look difficult for them. Even with Rovanpera dominating.

[EstWRC]

Also. Juohki reporting in Finnish media that Suninen has a contract also for next year with Hyundai, 7 rallies

[mknight]

That would imo rule out any chance for Evans switching. Ogier to pair him up would still work.

[meh]

No facts here, just my thoughts. I don't know who has contracts and how long they are.

# Toyota

* Rovanperä - I don't think he leaves Toyota. Everything works for him, can do drifting (and maybe something extra with Toyota).
* Ogier - he drives when he sees possibility to win. I don't think he sees point to jump to Hyndai and taking risk that he does not match with the car.
* Evans - if Toyota provides him new contract, why he should leave? He does not have good season, but currently he is 2nd in the standings.
* Takamoto - no moves, the question from team point of view should be - should they use him in separate team like last year or a point scorer for the main team. It may open up one (part time) position.


# Hyndai

* Neuville - hard to believe he moves anywhere
* Lappi - he seems to match with Hyundai well, 4 podiums from last 5 rallies is good stability.
* Suninen - he needs to prove himself to have full-time drive. Important rally ahead.
* Sordo - too old to drive, too young to retire? Not good season so far.
* Lindholm - at the moment hard to see him as one of the factory point scorer driver


# M-Sport

* Tänak - no-one knows. 2 podiums from 8 rallies is the lowest from top6 drivers (Rovanperä 5 + 3 times 4th, Evans 3 + 3 times 4th, Neuville 5, Ogier 3 (wins), Lappi 4). He needs quite some turn around from last 5 rallies to stay in WRC and or in M-Sport. 25 points from 104 is collected from PowerStages.
* Loubet - by current speed, he needs to buy his seat or is he investment project for M-Sport?

[Eli]

Some good news from Finland, the promoter and the organizers extended Rally Finland's contract until 2026.
https://www.wrc.com/en/news/2023/wrc...d-partnership/