Quote Originally Posted by Rallyper View Post
Going back to WRC2 as mainclass is not by far as big step they had to take in 1986 to 1987. From Group B to Group A. Big change of the material.

And absolutely no affect on fanbase.

So louder Rally2 and maybe +50 hp. cars would make a perfect combination for WRC.
I completely disagree that more power will make Rally2 instantly more interesting. They are already pushing 300bhp which should be more than enough. The issue (if any is perceived) with current rally cars, and has been for some years, is the suspension travel (and possibly the advancement of sophisticated suspension geometry?) which makes the cars more 'planted'. i.e. the tyre is spending more time in contact with the road surface, therefore less time that the car is sliding or the driver has to do something more aggressive to get the best out of the car.

I've also read on other forums this notion of the tyres 'have too much grip, they need less grippy tyres'. Again, I don't buy into this. Surely shit tyres will just cause the cars to handle like pigs and just understeer? I also wonder how much effect the diffs have to play in this. There have been discussions on this forum over the years of certain regulations stipulating 'no centre diff'. To me this is engineering nonsense - 'no centre diff' means no four-wheel-drive. It's either locked 1:1 ratio (no way that is what is being used without dreadful tyre wear and horrible handling characteristics), open (what I suspect is truly meant by 'no centre diff'), limited-slip (torque-sensing, viscous etc.), or electronically controlled 'active diff'. I know that even Rally2s have LSDs (correct me if I'm wrong), but not in the centre?

To me, the perfect 'Rally2+' would be:

  • No change in bodywork/spoilers - not necessary unless you want to appeal to 10-year old boys
  • 0.5mm increase in restrictor size - only to appease those who say they should have more power, not too much as to increase stresses and service costs/reduce service intervals. Again correct me if I'm wrongly assuming this will not still cause the problems noted. Rally2 would need to be downgraded by 0.5mm to keep that gap.
  • Reduced suspension travel - this would need to be carefully researched to find out what the sweet spot is to stop the cars appearing to be glued to the road then stipulated in regulations, same would have to be for downgraded Rally2s.
  • Non-active, LSD centre-diffs - this is not new and expensive technology, my perception is it will increase on-throttle adjustability in slippery circumstances. Again, correct me if I'm way off here.
  • 6-speed gearboxes - why were 5-speed boxes introduced in the first place? I heard George Donaldson (99% sure it was him) on a podcast ask that same question, it seems to have been made to no positive affect at all. Surely having more gears gets the best out of your engine anyway? Sequential actuation also is the least road-relevant method of changing gears, just go back to paddle shifters, these boxes were proven and reliable for a long time in the previous two generations of 1.6L World Rally Cars. For Rally2 I'd love to see H-pattern (still relevant in sports cars today) make a return, but this is just a pipe dream. It would at least be another performance differentiator between Rally2 and Rally1/Rally2+.


I know a lot of this is never going to happen - I think if Rally2+ did become a thing perhaps the best compromise would be go back to 6-speed gearboxes and a modest increase in power i.e. 1mm difference between restrictor sizes. I'm sure there would also be arguments of 'you can't downgrade the spec of Rally2s, there's too much of them out there on the market', but the same thing happened in the mid-90s with the downgrade in size of turbo restrictors on Group A8 cars. If you wanted to enter an international rally in an A8 car you had to comply, old spec cars could still be used in national rallies if the local ASN deemed so.