Rally1 hybrid cars (2022-)

[Eli]

https://dirtfish.com/rally/wrc/fia-e...cockpit-temps/

Hopefully they'll have a solution figured out in time for Sardegna.

[Sergiow]

There is a brand new personal interview today on rallyssimo.it by Alex Alessandrini with Andrea Adamo. I am certainly not going to translate it all, but those 3 questions and answers are truly a wake up call:

After three races, hybrid technology is under siege, plagued by reliability problems and more. At his time you had expressed some doubts about the transition to this technology, especially with respect to the times of realization and the car models that the market can offer for the next three / four years. Saying it today is perhaps easy but, what was the case to take some more time? Was it necessary to do this because the market is asking for that? What do you think?

"Look, I am still convinced today, after seeing the race in Portugal as a retiree going to see a road construction site instead of a WRC race, that this regulation was a mistake. I am convinced that today's cars should have been Rally2, with a bigger restrictor, perhaps a more eye-catching wing and rear bumper. Potentially there would have been more manufacturers today, there would certainly be more customers ready to race with these cars, there would probably be more interesting races because with cars that cost less, the panorama of competitive drivers who can race is widened.

Today we have very sophisticated machines at an electronic level but, with limitations in terms of suspension, engine and much more that lead me to wonder if it was really necessary to focus on machines like this. The transmission concept, with all due respect, is that of an R5: five-speed sequential lever operated gears without center differential. Then we can tell all the sophistication we want. The engine is an engine that has a huge cost where the ALS system (ed. Anti Lag System) is the same as the Rally2, since you can't have “Fresh Air” as it once was.

In a current moment where there is no money, I believe that making spaceships, because this is what it is, with certain extreme sophistications and with incredible costs like the hybrid system does not make much sense. Especially for a system that is used to move the cars to service in full electric mode and to have, between yes and no, additional power in the special stage, but the drivers declare that they detach it because it is easier for them to drive.

I wonder if we did the right thing and I take my share of the blame for having these cars here, because I was there too, despite having fought against it until the majority prevailed. We have no new manufacturers and we don't know if we will have any soon."


Yet the drivers themselves speak of rallies as the essence of motorsport and the images prove it. Yet we are no longer able to intrigue someone to wake up early in the morning, pack a backpack and go on trial.

"I would never do this again because we are in 2022 and we must remember that the 80s have passed for forty years. I keep saying it. It is useless that we continue to want to convince people that the past is beautiful. The past is over.

Let us ask ourselves: how do we bring to people what we have today with the tools we have today?

I take the liberty of saying one thing and I say: those of F1, who will be ugly, bad and unpleasant in the eyes of those of rallies, however, since Liberty Media arrived, he said "well gentlemen, now we do because we are continuing to talk to each other. us and to be self-referential ". And it is the same mistake we are making as we keep talking about rallies. All nice but outside the rallies nobody gives a damn, so you have to take someone who comes from outside who knows how to do real communication and says that now it is done like this.

F1 started using social media, Youtube, Netflix and all these things it does and, magic magic, now it goes to America. Because? Because they presented F1 in a different way than the stereotypical one that has been going on for years and today they like the same product. Then they made cars that know how to be more spectacular with less suffering in the wake thanks to studies paid for by the promoter. Not the FIA. Liberty Media invested some money, hired people, to do some studies and take it to a higher level of showmanship.

We keep talking, wondering how to do the best rallies with people who have been in rallies for 50 years and they keep telling each other that rallies are good. Okay, let's carry on but the guy across the street hasn't the faintest idea who these people are.

We make real reports, meetings with the drivers as it should be. Truly spectacular and well-known montages. People get passionate and go to see them and see them again. In Formula 1 you have your Coca Cola, lounges, sponsors and everything becomes a show. In rallies we take people far away to eat the dust and they don't give a damn."


Yet attempts like Ypres and Monza didn't go all that well, did they? Didn't they show something different than what rallies are?

"It was full. People care and whoever pays the ticket saves the race, but what really matters is the all-round visibility. Those who bring the money are the sponsors, the ones who pay for the TV rights. World F1 teams also get money based on TV rights, World Rally teams also pay for the air they breathe. Explain to me how a new manufacturer is attracted to a sport where: there is no visibility, he has spectators on the side of the road and maybe with an exit you kill someone, I have hospitality for sponsors but I often don't use them because the cars they go out in the morning and come back in the evening.

What show do I do in the service park? What's in there? Is there anyone who has raised the problem? No, there is All Live. They will write it on the plaque the day the rallies die: "but they had All Live"

https://www.rallyssimo.it/2022/05/28...-andrea-adamo/

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Sounds like the Rally1 hybrid is also part of the reason he left. His heart clearly wasn't in it from the start.

[WRCStan]

Strange he put up Rally2+ over the existing cars whilst mentioning no new manufacturers have joined and the promotion of the sport is terrible. Rally2+ will sort that? Skoda, Citroen, VW... don't even want to do WRC2. If he wants to tackle the other restrictions of who can homologate a car, who can build a car, who can run a car, please continue talking Mr Adamo, we may find common ground. Also, would love to task him as regulator + promotor, what would he change?

Wish somebody would put me straight on who wanted the Hybrid units. Can't remember if I read they belong to the FIA, who have issued a certain number out to each team for the season or that was done to contain costs/manufacture.

[wyler]

basically it says that rally2+ would be best, and then says rally1 are just rally2+ with costly hybrid...funny.

about the f1 style rally there's no need to comment more. his "fake rally test" speaks by his own...

[Sergiow]

Strange he put up Rally2+ over the existing cars whilst mentioning no new manufacturers have joined and the promotion of the sport is terrible. Rally2+ will sort that? Skoda, Citroen, VW... don't even want to do WRC2. If he wants to tackle the other restrictions of who can homologate a car, who can build a car, who can run a car, please continue talking Mr Adamo, we may find common ground.

In the same rallysimo.it interview Adamo touches the subject of Hyundai customer racing:
"A time when I found myself building Hyundai's Customer Racing from scratch, hiring people, managing budgets. With the first R5 I technically managed a project that had already been started and was already in an advanced state, correcting as much as possible what I thought was wrong and at the same time organizing the workshop and managing the budget dynamics here too. Meanwhile, in July 2016, the TCR project began, a rather complex moment".

When you look at the current Rally Italia Sardegna, there are 36 Rally2 cars in the entry list, including a whopping 7 by Toksport (Mikkelsen, Gryazin, Férnandez, Bulacia (x2), Ingram + Pajari) so without a doubt the customer racing is the backbone of WRC. The big question here is: why has Toyota no customer racing in WRC?

[the sniper]

"What show do I do in the service park? What's in there? Is there anyone who has raised the problem? No, there is All Live. They will write it on the plaque the day the rallies die: "but they had All Live"[/I]

https://www.rallyssimo.it/2022/05/28...-andrea-adamo/

That statement may be so, but I'm not sure of the extent of what he's seemingly suggesting regarding the nature of events.

I wonder what rallying people who argue that rallying shouldn't really go anywhere anymore make of the profoundly more successful, cycling stage races, which haven't sold out (or sold out for no value, in WRC's case) their format. Those are still everything in scope that rallying has given up... WRC people would have turned the Tour De France into three days around the Champs-Élysées! Off topic for this thread though. Thanks for the translation.

That rallying can't be what it was is true, if only for logistical/safety reasons, but that doesn't mean it needs to be fundamentally different.

[Sergiow]

In some way Adamo is right about the F1 style rally: just compare the service parks of Monte Carlo, Sardegna, Ypres or Monza with those of Finland or Portugal: would you like to invite your hospitality sponsors to a service park situated in an Industrial area? Check the Service Park in Alghero on friday and saturday night and there is truly a wonderful crowded atmosphere. But Adamo is wrong about All live which currently makes the difference with F1: I am not a paying customer to All Live but its currently free service gets me informed with everything I need being live on the stages, including comments of the drivers right after the end of each stage. For a paying subscription you get the moving images as well if you like

[AndyRAC]

That statement may be so, but I'm not sure of the extent of what he's seemingly suggesting regarding the nature of events.

I wonder what rallying people who argue that rallying shouldn't really go anywhere anymore make of the profoundly more successful, cycling stage races, which haven't sold out (or sold out for no value, in WRC's case) their format. Those are still everything in scope that rallying has given up... WRC people would have turned the Tour De France into three days around the Champs-Élysées! Off topic for this thread though. Thanks for the translation.

That rallying can't be what it was is true, if only for logistical/safety reasons, but that doesn't mean it needs to be fundamentally different.

Other sports don't dare mess around with their historical events, that's how they've become iconic. I often joke if the WRC bosses ran the WEC, they'd make Le Mans a 6 hour race on the Bugatti circuit. Or change the cycling 'monuments' into 180-200km races. Cycling purists are aghast when Strade Bianchi is called a modern 'monument', as it's only 186km.

Sadly, those in charge of the WRC don't care for the 'classic' events - and they have been made to fit a generic format. You can't keep changing the sport (particularly for TV) - or you end up with something more akin to multi stage World RX.

As for All Live, well I did laugh when I read that comment.......Too many have been convinced All Live is the answer to the sports problems. It's not.....

[AnttiL]

So rallying should still be long travel sections and driving tests like it was in the 50's?

Quite funny that Adamo would want WRC to be more service-park centric, while many people want the opposite. Maybe the current solution is the happy medium where we have the cars three times a day in the service park, but also doing "endurance" loops. Maybe we should open a new topic about that.

EDIT: here https://www.motorsportforums.com/sho...-of-WRC-events