FIA Rally Working Group: the future of WRC and the rally sport

[WRCStan]

The point is that WRC can easily work as customer teams based series, if it's possible in much much more expensive WEC.

Perhaps we are having different trains of thought. I got here from Per saying somebody would buy a car on a Monday and go rallying the next weekend, these are Bomber's amateurs.

Customer teams are commercially viable/profitable, they're not amateurs, the clue is in the name. They have to meet the promoter's and FIA standards financially, oblige their commercial agreements and do other things like environmental accreditation. Amateurs aren't doing this except exceptionally. There is also a value of scale these teams bring where there are many customers, as do suppliers to the championships and events bring. The idea that these customers could arrange all this themselves as amateurs, that the FIA would allow it in a World Championship, is wrong.

Customer teams aren't a foreign concept to rallying, there is M-Sport in Rally1 and was 2C a few years ago, amongst the WRC2 offering. They aren't sustaining a world championship though, we can see it. Not even WRC2 or Rally2 as top class can sustain a world championship.

[AndyRAC]

As i said before, manufacturers coming has nothing to do with the cost but everything with the cost/profit ratio.
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Yeah; manufacturers will put up with costs, if there is value for them, from the sport. And, quite obviously, currently, there is no value.

Somebody well known has said, "the danger in cutting costs is you're left with no value" - and that applies to the WRC.

[WRCStan]

As i said before, manufacturers coming has nothing to do with the cost but everything with the cost/profit ratio.

Not everything, there is branding values too. Manufacturers don't see thrashing a fossil fuel car in a reckless way as their brand. Except Toyota GR and Hyundai N. Fine in Asia obviously but not Europe.

[seb_sh]

The point is that WRC can easily work as customer teams based series, if it's possible in much much more expensive WEC.

Sorry but you got it wrong if you think the WEC Hypercar teams are customers. A better word maybe would be partners but those operations are works operations that would not be there if the manufacturer wouldn't be there to drive the project. Such partnerships are common in sportscar racing going back a long time. Some examples are Audi (partnered with Joest, R8 was chassis built by Dallara, still it was a very works team), Toyota (not sure about now but when they came back in 2010's they partnered with ORECA to run the race team), Porsche (Manthey in the 2010s, now Penske) and the list could go on. Only Proton, JDC Miller, Jota and Action Express are LMDh customers as they bought the car and run it independently. As becher said WRC used to be the same in the 90s and 2000s with Mitsubishi (Ralliart), Subaru (Prodrive), Ford (MSport), Hyundai (MSD)

LMGT3 is different and is run in the spirit of all other amateur GT3 championships and mandate at least one amateur driver.

[seb_sh]

Not everything, there is branding values too. Manufacturers don't see thrashing a fossil fuel car in a reckless way as their brand. Except Toyota GR and Hyundai N. Fine in Asia obviously but not Europe.

I'm not sure this is valid, they have no problem going to the Dakar and WRC2... I think it's more to due with the WRC not being a good return for the costs.

[Kenneth]

I'm not saying that WEC Hypercars are customer, but that they are mostly run the same way as Toksport run Škoda cars, except Toyota and Peugeot, which are in-house works teams. And there are still few fully customer teams. Which I wrote in previous posts.

GT3 cars cost is very close to Rally1 cars and is fully customer class. It works because ACO were able to come with efficient way to keep costs down, which not only allows to run these cars on customer basis, but also it drew attention of bunch new (or returning) manufacturers. Idk who you think that "amateur driver" is, but if we used WRC analogy again, these are usually drivers without larger achievements, like let's say Munster or Pajari, or in few cases rich gentleman drivers. These are no drivers that are in the car for 5th time.

There is no reason why WRC would need fully in-house works teams like there are now. It can easily work on the similar basis as WEC. Manufacturers could field the cars through private teams like Toksport or Oreca or even make it mandatory to sell cars on customer basis for other private teams that would like to compete in WRC. Again, costs of GT3 racing isn't far from WRC and it's much more expensive than Rally2.

If FIA can effectively keep the costs down (again, WEC were able do to that), WRC could run largely on customer basis, same as it was possible in early 2000s.

[seb_sh]

I'm not saying that WEC Hypercars are customer, but that they are mostly run the same way as Toksport run Škoda cars, except Toyota and Peugeot, which are in-house works teams. And there are still few fully customer teams. Which I wrote in previous posts.

GT3 cars cost is very close to Rally1 cars and is fully customer class. It works because ACO were able to come with efficient way to keep costs down, which not only allows to run these cars on customer basis, but also it drew attention of bunch new (or returning) manufacturers. Idk who you think that "amateur driver" is, but if we used WRC analogy again, these are usually drivers without larger achievements, like let's say Munster or Pajari, or in few cases rich gentleman drivers. These are no drivers that are in the car for 5th time.

There is no reason why WRC would need fully in-house works teams like there are now. It can easily work on the similar basis as WEC. Manufacturers could field the cars through private teams like Toksport or Oreca or even make it mandatory to sell cars on customer basis for other private teams that would like to compete in WRC. Again, costs of GT3 racing isn't far from WRC and it's much more expensive than Rally2.

If FIA can effectively keep the costs down (again, WEC were able do to that), WRC could run largely on customer basis, same as it was possible in early 2000s.

Ok I think I understand your point better now but you did write customer teams... GT3 is not ACO's category, they just adopted it starting this year, GT3 was created by SRO. By amateur driver I mean Bronze driver, as I guess you know in Sportscars and GT racing all drivers are rated Platinum, Gold, Silver or Bronze, where Bronze are mostly gentlemen (and women) drivers or amateurs in the sense that they have a different job/income and race for fun, also there are some performance criteria, if you get fast you can get moved up to silver.

Coming back to the teams thing i don't think it's an issue, MSport is like that now, and Toyota kind of started like that with Makinen. I bet if a manufacturer went to Prodrive and said we want to go to WRC that could happen no problem.

[WRCStan]

I'm not sure this is valid, they have no problem going to the Dakar and WRC2... I think it's more to due with the WRC not being a good return for the costs.

What's a good return?

WRC2, Dakar... invisible to the vast majority... which European manufacturers are there officially and for branding purposes?

[seb_sh]

What's a good return?

WRC2, Dakar... invisible to the vast majority... which European manufacturers are there officially and for branding purposes?

Exposure / money spent. I guess you can compare the viewership and online impressions you get for WRC with other sports and decide where you want to spend your money.

In Dakar there's Audi and Mini, besides non-europeans Toyota and Ford, plus Dacia recently announced they are joining and hired Loeb and Al-Attiyah.

I suppose you know who is in WRC2. If they wanted to avoid that image as you say why would they be there at all? That rationale makes no sense if you look a bit outside the box of WRC.

[becher]

The reason manufacturer interest in GT3 is so high is, is because it's a buisness case. They make money selling customer cars and get exposure by the odd faux works team or factory driver in one of their customers cars. It's the same as Rally2. Once you push that customer centered product to far up the food chain, manufacturers start to go crazy and the privateers start dying due to cost. Once the customers are gone the manufacturers loose their business case and leave. Just moving to a customer supported format is not valid solution to fix the current problems in rallying in my opinion.