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

[Mirek]

im not the best with these technical stuff, ok? but my thought would be manufacturer teams would have to build a 'rally2' car with: hybrid engines OR totally electric OR one that runs on hydrogen on the same "specs" (like max power to weight ratio) as a regular rally2 ("4.2kg/hp" / 1230kg / 1620cc). it would be heavier, of course, so then you have a little bit more power to compensate. i dont know how the b.o.p. would have to be implemented, but im sure people with more knoweledge could help. that way, for example, Hyundai could run their hybrid KONA on the factory team, but it would be "on the same level" as privateers running i20 rally2 cars. i mean, of course it would not be exactly the same since manufacturer teams spend more so they are normally faster, but that way we could have room for manufacturer and privateer/costumer teams on the top class, since the "specs" would be more similar. they can even run their IONIQ 5N with electric power as long as the power to weight ratio is similar to current rally2 cars (again, im not sure how that works on b.o.p., but im sure is doable).
does that sound ok? of course rally2s are not as fast as rally1, and its NOT going to be a "rally2+" thing, its just rally2 cars, but manufacturers gotta run hybrid engines, or full electric or on hydrogen (like toyota already showed, tho that looked more like a rally3 machinery)

i know its easy to say this from my couch here, but when manufacturers want to move on to new models, they could have a "racing division" to sell their "next" rally2 cars with regular engines and synth fuel to privateers, like skoda and msport does. Hyundai could have a Kona with regular engine and synth fuel competing all over the world in the rally2 class, because its just for competition. maybe?

In ralying you can't compensate weight with power. It's not drag racing. Heavy cars are slow in corners.

Fully electric COMPETITIVE rally car is impossible at 2024 tech level. You would need something like 400-500 kg of batteries to finish one section. Such car would be slow as hell especially if based on stock bodyshell (the electric "R5" in Austria had some 300 kg battery pack from Formula-E, it was slower than regular Rally2 cars and still not capable to finish a common WRC section distance).

Stock bodyshells of the small cars are generally not well suitable for making them into hybrid or EV. That's one of the reasons why we have spaceframe prototypes. For example if you use stock bodyshells you need different battery pack for every car unless it's very small battery (size, available space, shape of the floor etc.). Generally stock bodyshells for WRC/Rally1 level bring a lot of troubles. They make sense for Rally2 because the production numbers are much greater. For Rally1 the spaceframe prototypes are absolutely the right way to go especially taking into account the future possibility of private teams to homologate their own cars (and that is a must for the sport to survive).

The only way how to make an EV car competitive in WRC is the same way as in Dakar - serial hybrid. Again pretty much unsuitable for far majority of stock bodyshells which weren't designed with that in mind.

IMHO In the forseenable future WRC will go with synthetic fuels or hydrogen but not with EV.