No Citroën in WRC 2013?

[ArnageWRC]

Yes, I agree. Sadly, it shouldn’t matter if there’s a Brit challenging or not, but that’s the way the media works in this country – for all but the top sports. We do have a few young drivers coming up, but they have no backing. Hell, even Meeke, can’t get a drive.
Are we still a major car market? Citroen UK and Ford UK haven’t really pushed their involvement have they?

There’s absolutely no doubt that it’s no longer as popular as it once was. From 1976 – 1994 there wasn’t a British winner of the RAC Rally; but that didn’t stop any of the huge crowds or massive media interest. Now it’s a pale shadow – and no bigging it up by the organisers can rescue it. It used to attract your general sports/Motorsports fan for an end of year event – and even the media would quite often send their F1 journalists to cover it. You’ll be lucky to find anything this weekend.

[chunder]

Half of the problem is that is now the Rally of Wales I feel

Before that you would always get regional coverage at the very least.

I just dont get that into WRCanymore, the cars and rallies are not as exciting and the drivers dont dont seem to engage as much.

You used to have the dour but fabulous Tommi, Colin, Richard, Juha, Carlos, Didier etc etc.

Now the drivers are just as quick but just dont seem to have as much charisma, not sure really, nard to quantify.

[ArnageWRC]

I know it’s not a popular view – but half of the problem is RallyGB being entirely based in Wales. It’s no longer a ‘National’ event – it’s a Welsh/regional/local event. You used to have people going to the Sunday spectator stages who wouldn’t be classed as ‘Rallyfans’ – but were interested enough to pay their £10-15 per car to watch at a country house stage.



The event needs to be centrally based – and take in more stages. Take the event to the people – putting it in a stadium isn’t doing that. Since IMS was set up, ticket prices have rocketed, and interest and spectator figures have dropped. Coincidence??



Personally, it’s time for a rethink, and a major overhaul of the event – and IMS getting binned. Not likely...

[AndyS]

Originally Posted by ArnageWRC

The event needs to be centrally based – and take in more stages. Take the event to the people – putting it in a stadium isn’t doing that.

Basically what the old RAC rally used to be. There was talk of moving it to a base in Harrogate, but that seems to have all gone quiet. That would give better access to the Northern Forests but would make it difficult to take in some of the stages in Wales, unless they went back to the old 4 or 5 day format, which looks unlikely. There's also the option of overnight halts and doing away with the central service park, though when they split things at the Monte Carlo Rally it didn't seem to go down well so again this is unlikely.

[ArnageWRC]

The problem is actually the teams holding the sport back. Jean Todt/ FiA wants one thing - mainly more of an Endurance element, the teams don't. However, the current 'cloverleaf' format just isn't working. Are they really that stupid? The sport needs to be taken to the fans.

[chunder]

I am with Todt in this regard, he is a proper rally man, and should really understand what is needed.

It should be more enduro based, but I can see their point, they simply cant afford it!

[ArnageWRC]

I've no sympathy for them. They had the chance to cut the costs a few years ago when the new car regs were up for discussion. We ended up with cars not much less expensive than their forebears. The whole point was to cut the cost of cars, and to attract more Manufacturers. In an ideal world, the cars would be affordable, so the teams could run 3-4 factory cars.

[kober]

The cost wasn't the only factor. The current WRCs are S2000 cars with a quickly (in a few hours) attachable WRC kit, and a 1.6 turbo "world engine". In fact, all current S2000 cars (some call them RRC) can only be homologated with such an engine. And there were/are quite a few of S2000 manufacturers out there, and there have been at least a couple of hundreds of such cars built (counting both 2.0 and 1.6t versions). So the potential was there. Unfortunately, none of them moved to the world championships...