2024 WRC News & Rumours

[1988senna]

My understand is that split 3 days race to 2 parts can give more chance to the drivers like Evans always retired in Friday or Saturday to compete with Rovanpera in standing.Mr Sunday can't imagine get 12 points in sunday in the past

In the same time if Rovanpera meet more pressure from other guys it will likely make him to make more mistakes also. So the new points system is not only to make Sunday more exciting but also make championship more exciting. Anyone agree?

[meh]

Anyone agree?

No.

My understanding is - if you are not really a dedicated rally fan and know all (current) rules, it is already too complicated to understand (immediately) - one day they drive in one order, another day in another order, and then there are powerstage points, etc.

Now, they create a complete mess with the points - the average rally fan probably is not that good in mathematics (sorry for the generalization), if it is too complicated to understand, they'll probably lose more interest and stay away from it.

It must be KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).

About your example Rovanperä vs Evans - I think if someone can not handle the pressure, it is Evans, not Rovanperä. So it may also work vice-versa.

[EstWRC]

Abiteboul named Hyundai president in management reshuffle
Cyril Abiteboul has been named as Hyundai Motorsport president as part of a senior management reshuffle at the Korean manufacturer.

https://www.motorsport.com/wrc/news/...ffle/10559480/

[seb_sh]

If you read what the cousin said carefully, he didn't complain about the format of the rally itself. He complained about the long review on tv. He would like a 15-20 minute review/highlights of the whole rally. At least that's what I understood, he wouldn't care if the cars did 2 stages or 20 as long as it would be a 15 minute video.

As for Gymkhana part, there are already super specials, there used to be more side by side type super specials. Also semi artificial sections with viewing spots exist on some rallies, maybe there could be more?

People love to come up with theories to make rallying popular to the younger generations. Maybe a big part of the problem and the solution is more in the TV studio. Also nowadays people are bombarded with information, perhaps a 15-20 minute review for a casual fan is a good idea.

I'm going to have a conversation with myself here but what I said in that post was something the crossed through my mind based on that conversation. In reality you have to look at everything at high level first.

Somebody put it best earlier in the thread, first you have to decide what you want, where you want to go with the championship, then you can take measures to get there. In a word it's called vision. I think WRC is completely lacking vision and this rule shows it too, it's just a band-aid and could have uninteded secondary effects.

[AndyRAC]

Stop trying to appeal to those mythical casual fans........and just annoy the loyal fans who've supported the sport through thick and thin. More short term 'fixes' that don't address the problems.


If these clowns ran the WEC, they'd have panicked when it was just Toyota - we'd have few manufacturers, 3-4 hour identikit races, they'd drop Le Mans as it's too long, expensive for teams, fans, etc....and award points for a final hour fastest lap......

[typhoon]

As I told in the past, it's not about the gimmicks you want to put in the series, but it's time for the FIA and the Promoter to work on the best solution for all the stakeholders.

Manufacturers wants hybrid or EV or Hydrogen. Perfectly fine, if this helps improving the field and get more cars at the start ramp, then go for it. Either with BoP or whatever they figure out.

If a local Promoter wants to develop 3 Superspecials and 5 in-line, 6km fan-stages, then go for it. Not every rally needs to be a carnage, as long as we have a rally with enough mileage to be called a WRC event.

But it's FIA responsibility to:
1 - Develop a Budget Cap for the teams in order to make the whole season more affordable
2 - Work on the flexibility of the events themselves

Also, it's gonna be WRC Promoter's responsibility to be able to make the series more attractive in few steps:
1 - Bring partners for which you won't ask money for the sponsorship, but rather provide any service (I wrote about DHL providing dome freights for fly-away rallies to lower logistic costs), etc.
2 - Distribute the TV product in a more flexible way, providing more compact highlights and more free-to-air TV broadcasts, without asking sick prices as I learned in Italy for which NO ONE would buy. Some TV rights are out of this world and they better wake up on how the market changed. It's almost 2024, seriously.
3 - Heavily invest on "new fans", via Social Media, Twitch and E-Sports.

Regarding this last point: the average WRC fan is "aging" and thus is not going to purchase out of enthusiasm and artificial hype, but is rather doing its purchases more "wisely". Embracing those new potential fanbase would mean tons of merch sold, tons of interactions and actions on the web and a gold mine called E-Sports which can bring easily tens of tons of money for the growth of the series. On this side, everything is almost unexplored from the Promoter's POV. Quite a shame indeed.

[WRCStan]

3 - Heavily invest on "new fans", via Social Media, Twitch and E-Sports.

Regarding this last point: the average WRC fan is "aging" and thus is not going to purchase out of enthusiasm and artificial hype, but is rather doing its purchases more "wisely". Embracing those new potential fanbase would mean tons of merch sold, tons of interactions and actions on the web and a gold mine called E-Sports which can bring easily tens of tons of money for the growth of the series. On this side, everything is almost unexplored from the Promoter's POV. Quite a shame indeed.

Did you miss them licensing the brand to rally sim/game developers and having e-championships for the past umpteen years.

[WRCStan]

OK, the rally working group involving Richards and Reid was announced during the Baku meet. It will cover issues beyond WRC to grassroots rallying. https://www.fia.com/news/fia-statement-future-rallying

WMSC discusses and approves/rejects motions proposed to it, including all championship or discipline rules. They also approved the rule change at the Baku meet. No way the new working group invented and thrashed through this change, to propose it to the WMSC, to discuss, to vote on, within those days. After WMSC ratified the system change idea it said a WMSC Task Force was responsible for setting the points distribution. This may have involved Richards as a WMSC member, we don't know for sure. https://www.fia.com/news/wmsc-gather...-landmark-year

The proposal would likely have come from the WRC Commission, given it's a WRC regulation and not a general rallying rule and with so few manufacturers involved. Richards is not a member of these. There's also the WRC working groups, task forces and committees elsewhere, such as the meeting with drivers that Solberg chaired as Drivers Commission president. That was the meeting that had 80 ideas discussed, one of which is likely to be this points change.

Come to think of it, does Richards even have skin in the WRC game? He can't even be bothered to get a WRC round going as MSUK chief. It's possible he gets involved, he is on the senate I think, but I still think it's better to have some evidence.

To follow up on this, today's Rally Dept newsletter explains the Working Group was the Task Force here, i.e setting the points scale. They then met with manufacturers and promoter (as reported) to discuss this and lots of things. The group's immediate focus is the WRC and will produce a paper, with recommendations going to the WRC Commission.

Which then needs the WMSC to approve changes.

So fair to say DR will be having a say in future, but still not clear all this was his idea.

[Kenneth]

a gold mine called E-Sports which can bring easily tens of tons of money for the growth of the series.

Gold mine called esports? As someone who is in the industry, I can say that this is a good joke.

[Mirek]

1 - Develop a Budget Cap for the teams in order to make the whole season more affordable

IMHO this way of thinking is fundamentally wrong.

You don't create a successful plan by cutting costs because the cost is very relative term absolutely relevant to the value. In other words a bad product is never cheap enough and a good product is never too expensive. FIA absolutely must work on the value of the product not trying to improve the cost of a bad one.

I know that my talk is cheap but I stand my ground that the WRC can not survive as a major sport without a radical redesign even when that will not be liked by part of its core fans.