2012 World Rally Championship

[leonidas]

Louise Cook was second in the British Fiesta ST Trophy last year. She's doing the production WRC this year.

Great to see MINI up there - second is the best they could have hoped for. Its sad to see the lack of commitment from BMW to its rallying programme. Surely the WRC is higher profile than anything else they do in motorsport? And MINI is such an iconic brand in rallying. How many young drivers and clubmen would get on board if they homologated an R1 or R2 car?

[bella]

actually that raises a point i was pondering whilst i was there. it wasn't entirely obvious what the purpose of the wrc actually *is*. is it for the competitors? the organisers? it's certainly not for the manufacturers - it just seemed like a little national rally thing that pottered around the countryside and just so happened to end up at monaco. how *that* is meant to raise their profile... the circuit equivalent to me is the wtcc - all mouth and no trousers.

granted, it's not really a sport for the vips, and with a field of less than 100 it's not really for the spectators any more - though they did at least do the col de turini twice. even that was a bit of a half arsed version, i agree with the rally correspondant from autosport on that.

i'd quite like to have a look around an irc rally to see the difference. i can't imagine there's much in it really.

[chunder]

WRc is not realy what it was for me.

The rallies are too short and the stages are far too highly noted, you watch now from afar and someone like Loeb goes through and you can't see any way he could have gone quicker coz his notes are so perfect and he just is at a level where he is constantrly at 10/10th for the hole event.

Even farly recently a Sainz or Makinen would pace themselves on an event, try and look aftr the car a bit, then attack on the "bits he knew beter" coz the stages were longer and the cars maybe less reliable.

OK you c na say it's great that every stage is maximum attack and every corner perfect, but to me looking after the car a bit, knowing when to attack was the essence of the genius of a Rohrl or Mikkola, it was Colon and Tommi's fault, they proved you can win rallies by running flat out constantly and forced manufacturers to make cars that would stand the punishment.

I watched footage of the 78 RAC the other day, it was a full 4 days, drivers getting a few hours sleep in snow, rain, more night stages. Call me mold fashioned but when a Mikkola or Waldegard wins that event it gives me more satisfaction than Loeb winning a 3 day event that covered lass miles than one day of the old RAC.

Remember the old Circui of Ireland proably ceovered more miles than two or three modern WRC events, and the old Safari was not much different to the bloody Dakar!

[bella]

Originally Posted by chunder

The rallies are too short and the stages are far too highly noted, you watch now from afar and someone like Loeb goes through and you can't see any way he could have gone quicker coz his notes are so perfect and he just is at a level where he is constantrly at 10/10th for the hole event.

that's my problem with it too. what really got up my nose was loeb whinging about the monte being too long and it being bad for the private drivers bringing up the rear, it was too expensive yada yada. not one reason he gave had anything to do with the actual man art of rallying. and the private drivers he was whining for? seemed quite happy to me. i don't think it's just as clear as saying the field was a lot smaller because it was a longer rally.

Originally Posted by chunder

Remember the old Circui of Ireland proably ceovered more miles than two or three modern WRC events, and the old Safari was not much different to the bloody Dakar!

see, that's the rallying i remember too, even from the early-mid-late 90s. i know that's like saying that f1 isn't like it was in the 80s and 70s, of course it isn't, but it's also like cutting f1 races to 5 laps.

incidentally, does anyone know where i can find maps of the various versions of the col de turini stage routes?

[BertMk2]

Well the Historic Monte Carlo rally starts this weekend - that's got a bit more distance to it. Info here: http://www.acm.mc/home.php?lg=en

[AndyS]

Originally Posted by chunder

WRc is not realy what it was for me.

The rallies are too short and the stages are far too highly noted, you watch now from afar and someone like Loeb goes through and you can't see any way he could have gone quicker coz his notes are so perfect and he just is at a level where he is constantrly at 10/10th for the hole event.

Even farly recently a Sainz or Makinen would pace themselves on an event, try and look aftr the car a bit, then attack on the "bits he knew beter" coz the stages were longer and the cars maybe less reliable.

OK you c na say it's great that every stage is maximum attack and every corner perfect, but to me looking after the car a bit, knowing when to attack was the essence of the genius of a Rohrl or Mikkola, it was Colon and Tommi's fault, they proved you can win rallies by running flat out constantly and forced manufacturers to make cars that would stand the punishment.

I watched footage of the 78 RAC the other day, it was a full 4 days, drivers getting a few hours sleep in snow, rain, more night stages. Call me mold fashioned but when a Mikkola or Waldegard wins that event it gives me more satisfaction than Loeb winning a 3 day event that covered lass miles than one day of the old RAC.

Remember the old Circui of Ireland proably ceovered more miles than two or three modern WRC events, and the old Safari was not much different to the bloody Dakar!

I agree with you regarding the length of the events. I think Sainz made this point in an interview some time ago now that rallies used to literally stop the country. I recall the RAC back in the 80's and 90's and I think I remember it being qouted that it was the best attended sporting event in the UK every year. I found it a bit staggering but figures of over a million were qouted over the 4 or 5 days. Now you'd barely know Rally GB was going on.

WRC has been allowed to play second fiddle to F1 for too long. Media is the big key and getting the profile of the sport back up. From a UK perspective it needs to be on the main terrestrial channels if its going to really get noticed again. Every country is different though.

The FIA do seem obsessed with having a standard blue print that every organiser must work to, central service park etc. The organisers should be able to do as they see fit within reason. If that involves a central service park, no stages in the dark and a short event fine but don't restrict every rally to the same blue print. I appreciate that Todt seems to have loosened this a bit, as seen on the Monte but I notice there have been grumbles about having it more centralised, possible from the FIA.

Events also seem to be resticted to just the WRC catergories now (correct me if I'm wrong). Certainly the RAC used to involve Historic's and National runners. I have not really followed rallying much in the last 10 years so I am casting my mind back a bit, but I seem to think the entries for the RAC were in excess of 200 cars including all the national runners.

My final point in this rather long winded post (sorry) is the cars. The new WRC's are a vast improvement on their predecessors, but they lack a bit of character for me. Cars like the Mk2 Escort, Quatro, Delta Intergrale, Original Impreza & Evo's, Escort Cosworth even the RS200 had more of a connection as you could conceivable drive one yourself on the road. They were expensive but more in the reach of the average guy on the street than say a Ferrari. I know those days are gone now, but I feel the cars are all a bit to samey samey now ie small hatch backs. Can manufacturers use other body shells ie larger cars or coupes? It would be great to see the RCZ, TT, new Toybura's, new Astra Coupe to name but a few. I'm sure there are many others you could all suggest as well.

[bella]

Originally Posted by AndyS

WRC has been allowed to play second fiddle to F1 for too long. Media is the big key and getting the profile of the sport back up. From a UK perspective it needs to be on the main terrestrial channels if its going to really get noticed again. Every country is different though.

how do you think they could get more interest in it? i know at the moment the situation with the promoters isn't helping but it's difficult to find media coverage and photos. it tends to be the smaller sites that do anything like a reasonable level of detail.

i'm not sure it's as much of a universal spectator sport like circuit racing is. i mean, sure, i'd love to go out to a stage to see them go past, but that's it isn't it? they go past once, or sometimes if you stay put for another 5 hours, they'll do it again. bleugh. so like you say, it needs to be on the telly, and the telly coverage has to be absolutely mint to grab people's attentions.

but how do you market it to people? dakar is easy, it's just so ridiculously epic that the promotional stuff writes itself. but wrc is a bit less... stand-out. so what do you market it on?

[Jimmy Magnusson]

Well the rallies are hopefully getting longer (Argentina this year is 500km+) thanks to Jean Todt. It's not as long as they were in the 80s but hey ho. I think it's best to have a mix - some short (400km) and some absolute monsters (Safari, RAC, Corscia et al). Overall I think we're moving in a positive direction compared to recent years - better TV coverage, longer rallies, possibility for four manufacturers next year (Citroën, Ford, Mini, VW) and an interesting mix of drivers. More rallies outside Europe is also on the FIA agenda (one in Africa and one in Asia being priorities), so that's good as well.

[AndyS]

Originally Posted by bella

how do you think they could get more interest in it? i know at the moment the situation with the promoters isn't helping but it's difficult to find media coverage and photos. it tends to be the smaller sites that do anything like a reasonable level of detail.

i'm not sure it's as much of a universal spectator sport like circuit racing is. i mean, sure, i'd love to go out to a stage to see them go past, but that's it isn't it? they go past once, or sometimes if you stay put for another 5 hours, they'll do it again. bleugh. so like you say, it needs to be on the telly, and the telly coverage has to be absolutely mint to grab people's attentions.

but how do you market it to people? dakar is easy, it's just so ridiculously epic that the promotional stuff writes itself. but wrc is a bit less... stand-out. so what do you market it on?

How could they get more interest? I don't know, thats why I don't work in Advertising or Marketing! I would assume its a question of getting a decent promoter.

As it stands now your right, the events just don't make a bigger enough splash to have a mass appeal. I'd disagree that it doesn't have potentially universal appeal thought. Although, still on the right side of 40 (just) I'm old enough to remember the WRC in the 80's and 90's and it certainly had a wide appeal then and attracted huge crowds. Although not as epic as the Dakar, the rallies used to be a lot more epic than they are now. Maybe that was the appeal, it certainly was for me.

[morningview66]

They need to be made more accessible 1. as in terms of actually watching the event live and 2. Something really needs to be done about the TV coverage. The 2011 Monte Carlo rally coverage on Eurosport really set the standard live coverage from all but one stage.
Now I'm not saying that would be possible for all rallies and maybe there just needs to be a feed on the website and a round up of each day on terrestrial tv, but at the current state of rally coverage is shocking.

Also could do with a bit more promotion from the organisers/manufacturers so people know its going on.

[chunder]

Some bright spark got rid of the proper spectator stages, that got huge interest in the UK, introduced millions of people to rallying, albeit not proper rallying, but how many current fans wnet to their first stage at a Weston Park, Clumber or Donington?

The reason WRC is not on over here tv wise is coz no Brits are doing any good, it was at its biggest on prime time C4 when Burns and Colin were up front and winning, people knoew who they were, who Gronholm and Makinen were and it got huge, the biggest it perhaps will ever be.

Promotion is difficult as WRC is still a huge draw for fans worldwide, just maybt not as big in the UK since the MSA made you pay for very little and got rod of the spectator stages, and let's be honest staged the while damn even in Swansea! What a waste of time.

PLaces like Eastern Europe, POrtugal and Spain get huge crowds though and you just have to go where its growing and popular.

I dont mkind this, but I think the rules are getting there, we need better stages, less run throughs to stop this almost circuit like track learning and maybe more though into making rallies be near each other.

[bella]

Originally Posted by chunder

Some bright spark got rid of the proper spectator stages, that got huge interest in the UK, introduced millions of people to rallying, albeit not proper rallying, but how many current fans wnet to their first stage at a Weston Park, Clumber or Donington?

i went to... was it blenheim park when it was based around silverstone? something like that. does that count?

my folks went to one of the rally australia stages in the middle of.. whichever city it was too, though it was by coincidence. that was pretty cool, apparently, though like you say, completely not proper rallying. that sort of thing brings it to a totally different crowd who aren't really fans of sitting in the dark around a campfire by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere 10 miles walk from their cars.

[BertMk2]

I see in this weeks Motorsport News that Matt Wilson has got a full time M-Sport drive sorted out for this season now (along with Henning Solberg). On the one hand it's good to have the cars there for the year but on the other there really must be a better option.

[chunder]

There really must be, surely.

How many more chances is this guy going to get? Oh wait, that will be til Wilson doesnt control Ford rally team anymore!

Totally undeserving, as is Henning for that matter, but at least he brings a shed load of money!

[leonidas]

Originally Posted by bella

my folks went to one of the rally australia stages in the middle of.. whichever city it was too, though it was by coincidence. that was pretty cool, apparently, though like you say, completely not proper rallying. that sort of thing brings it to a totally different crowd who aren't really fans of sitting in the dark around a campfire by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere 10 miles walk from their cars.

Yes, the WRC suits don't seem to understand how to build up a wider audience. Stately homes, city centres, parks - it doesn't matter where as long as its accessible. Our local rally (Rally of the Midlands) gets a crowd just by having a stage in the municipal car park!

But you've also got to have a worthwhile competition - and that means an affordable championship where teams can run the best drivers and not have to rely on pay drivers.

How do you do that? Well it will be interesting to see if the BRC switch to 2wd only is copied by regional championships or even the IRC. Since the withdrawal of Mitsubishi and Subaru none of the WRC cars bear any meaningful relationship to a car you can go out and buy. If the FIA and manufacturers really want the WRC to move back towards a production base why not be really radical and phase out 4wd? And make it interesting for the spectator by allowing an increase in bhp but limiting performance tyres and suspension development?