WRC main class in 2025

[wyler]

useless idea

care to debate?

[Fast Eddie WRC]

i think you misread... it will not affect team size. why only 6 rally1? a team can have 3 or 4 like now, and get points from the top 2, exactly like now. point is adding a junior team with as many car as you please, and top car get points for manus championship. it's a good idea to have youngsters in works team, and get attention on support championships.

What would happen with Skoda / Toksport in this scenario and to the kudos of WRC2 ?

[wyler]

What would happen with Skoda / Toksport in this scenario and to the kudos of WRC2 ?

they'll remain the same. skoda will compete for rally2, i guess. just an "official" rally2 car of wrc teams will get point for manu's championship.
basically, m-sport and hiunday will stay the same in wrc2, toyota will add a couple of works rally2 yaris. it's just a more structured "junior ladder" and a little benefit in points to teams that develop drivers as m-sport. and a couple of more "interesting" seats.

downside: any new manufacturer or wrc team will have to develop 2 cars to enter wrc.

[Mirek]

downside: any new manufacturer or wrc team will have to develop 2 cars to enter wrc.

I don't try to say that I know how many new manufacturers would be attracted by such rules but I dare to guess it's less than one. Has the time already come for the series to commit seppuku or do I miss something?

[Duvel]

Sounds like a good idea to me to. Especially the extra attention for wrc2 would be good!

[seb_sh]

care to debate?

i'll expand:

1. This looks like a solution looking for a problem. All teams are already supporting at least one WRC2 driver in order to showcase their car and as a young driver scheme. Toyota is late to the party but I'm sure they'll catch up soon. I don't see what will improve in this respect with such a rule coming in as the thing is already happening.
2. Promoting or hurting young talent? Let's imagine we're one of the team principals, if this rule comes in you'll want a driver that's fast and experienced to score as many points for you as possible so you'll probably go with a proven hand than some hotshot youngster who'll be fast but roll 3 times a rally. I realise some may think different but if you're serious about running your team you'll think how to maximise points.
3. Result transparency. I follow a lot of motorsport, watch most WRC rallies live, F1, WEC, MotoGP and then many other series as I catch them or highlights. I can appreciate there are different ways to score points that work and most make sense for their respective championship to some degree at least. I honestly tell you that this rule would piss me off trying to figure out who gets how many points every rally. Firstly by having only 2 Rally1 cars score increases the chances that the cars that can score points are lower down so you have to keep track of who's nominated that particular rally. Then you need to keep in mind who's nominated in Rally2 and as if there are already not enough subcategories and shananigans with drivers doing all rounds and scoring only 6 best out of nominated 7 out of a total of 13. But maybe you say, just wait and the TV graphics will show it. So I'm now supposed to ignore it and get some number which seems inconsistent and meaningless unless I make a spreadsheet to see who actually got points? no thanks

to conclude, I see no actual advantages compared to the current situation but plenty of complication. In fact to me it smells like Millener trying to adapt the WRC to MSport as they would like to run only 2 cars on most rallies. Sorry but that's not the way forward.

[Mirek]

The first and foremost important thing to solve for the WRC is to attract some new manufacturers (or private teams if they finally change the homologation rules). Everything else is buying a new suit to a dying man. This proposal is not a solution to THE problem but exactly the opposite. No team will develop two cars in different classes in the same time. That's superexpensive receip for disaster and every sane manager will simply avoid that.

[wyler]

1. if it's already happening, there's no problem in doing it, so not many downsides... on the positives: it will improve the coverage of rally2 car, the interest on rally2 drivers and cars, and hopefully help m-sport to reduce the gap in point scoring from big manus, as good rally2 drivers are easier to hire and rally2 car are quite balanced in performance.

2. i guess a good rally2 team can be made of 2 car, 1 experienced and 1 young gun. the best one scores, so it's logical to have a reliable point scorer but also grow your new generation for rally1. it's possible that someone could bet more on one side than others, of course... that's without knowing if the rally2 team is open or has some "junior" features, i guess this could be explored in developing the rules.

3. what? i'm confused... it's the same as now! we currently have 2 rally1 scoring for teams...nothing will change. you can enter how many cars you wish, best 2 will score. that will remain the same. only this will apply to rally2 too. teams can enter how many car they want, best result for manus entered car will add points for the championship. Looks quite simple to me.

[wyler]

The first and foremost important thing to solve for the WRC is to attract some new manufacturers (or private teams if they finally change the homologation rules). Everything else is buying a new suit to a dying man. This proposal is not a solution to THE problem but exactly the opposite. No team will develop two cars in different classes in the same time. That's superexpensive receip for disaster and every sane manager will simply avoid that.

agreed. but reality is there's no chance to see new brands at least until new regulations*, so thinking to improve what we have now is not so bad.
then if brands attractive new reg comes out for 2027 on, this rally2 rule will be outdated. we've seen rally2 regs change every other year from wrc2-pro-open-junior-master so don't see it as a problem to try a couple of seasons.

*if subaru is entering any sooner will be some kind of toyota platform car. could be easily done for rally2 also. (i'm highly sceptical about this happening, just to be clear!)

[seb_sh]

1. if it's already happening, there's no problem in doing it, so not many downsides... on the positives: it will improve the coverage of rally2 car, the interest on rally2 drivers and cars, and hopefully help m-sport to reduce the gap in point scoring from big manus, as good rally2 drivers are easier to hire and rally2 car are quite balanced in performance.

2. i guess a good rally2 team can be made of 2 car, 1 experienced and 1 young gun. the best one scores, so it's logical to have a reliable point scorer but also grow your new generation for rally1. it's possible that someone could bet more on one side than others, of course... that's without knowing if the rally2 team is open or has some "junior" features, i guess this could be explored in developing the rules.

3. what? i'm confused... it's the same as now! we currently have 2 rally1 scoring for teams...nothing will change. you can enter how many cars you wish, best 2 will score. that will remain the same. only this will apply to rally2 too. teams can enter how many car they want, best result for manus entered car will add points for the championship. Looks quite simple to me.

will it really improve the coverage of WRC2? how? They will mention at the end of the rally: "X manufacturer also gets Y points from Z finishing 5th in WRC2 but getting top points for manu because he was the highest placed nominated driver behind 4 Skodas".

For point 3 I took it as reducing the number of nominated cars in Rally1 from 3 to 2 that might have been my misinterpretation, the source is vague. The point that there is a further complication to follow in WRC2 stands. Actually the most important point to mention is what Mirek said, that there shouldn't be an extra hurdle in place for a new manu joining. You say since most of the things are already happening then why not introduce it, I say exactly that there is no point, it's just a gimmick.