WRC mainclass from 2027

[WRCStan]

Something has alienated Manufacturers from WRC / Rally 1 with no new ones joining since Toyota 10 years ago (and both Volkswagen and Citroen leaving).

But Rally2 has continued to have Manufacturers and new cars built in this same period (Fabia RS, GR Yaris, Lancia Integrale, plus Citroen, Ford and Hyundai still developing their old cars).

What does this tell you ?

That customer rallying is big business and the manufacturers have enjoyed selling cars derived from production models into the sport, and that they don't want to do the sport themselves. WRC2 today has Lancia and M-Sport driven Ford, both fronts for customer racing, not for marketing production cars.

What did it all tell you?

[WRCStan]

Yes and no, we have manufacturers building cars, but not manufacturer teams in WRC2 that pay for everything (to my knowledge not many? None?).

The building cars part seems to be profitable, the runnings teams not so much. Last part compounts in Rally1

Consider this; Hyundai could contest WRC2 with no entry fee, but why would they when they shut down their workshop and didn't ship a car for over a year.

There's only Lancia paying to have their name in WRC2. In theory - I wouldn't be surprised if they cut a deal, which is why what comes next year is intriguing. They're also not compelled to do all rounds either and skipped Sweden and Kenya so far, no such luxury for WRC27 constructors.

[Ferranis]

I really, really, wonder how next year will pan out. Since it's only half a year now roughly until and we have not seen even one other WRC27 car.

Either we will have Toyota dominating or BOP'ed out of contention.

it's such an imbalance between Toyota and the other teams, how did we even end up here

[Ferranis]

And dominating or not, my god is this car boring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou4T-lotbl0

Rally3 are more exciting...

[TypeR]

This Youtube shorts video takes it together:
https://youtube.com/shorts/pv5jVIZab...7XprL0FSgZuKQN