A vision for WRC

Too anoraky for my usual Sabotage Times haunt, I was going to post this on my sprodically-updated blog, but I'd only end up posting a link to it here, so I thought I'd cut out the middle man.

It's a bit long for a forum post, so I'm expecting a lot of TLDRs but I hope you likey:

I've found myself banging on about the WRC’s short-comings rather a lot recently – it’s in a bit of a sorry state at the moment (understatement of 2012?) and I do feel a bit guilty about kicking it while it’s down, but I truly believe the time has come for it to be put out of its misery.

Of course, I’m aware of the tv/promoter issues, but I think that’s an effect, not a cause. The real problem with the WRC is with the cars.

I get quite a bit of stick for objecting to the machinery, particularly on PistonHeads, and mostly I get abused (probably by the youngsters) for just being an old bar steward who wants Group B cars back. I am, and I sort of do, but that’s silly, and it's never what I’m getting at.

What I am getting at is that the WRC has completely lost sight of what rallying was, and should be about, which is welding a roll cage in to a road car, chucking some gravel tyres and a sump guard on it and firing it down a forest road with a total nutter behind the wheel. Yes, the ‘homologation era' brought us some flipping fantastic rally and, more importantly, road cars, but the sad fact is that when the manufacturers realised that rather than rallying their road cars they should road their rally cars, we saw the beginning of the problems that have brought the championship to its knees. Clearly terrified of losing manufacturers like Ford when building rally cars for the road started to get very expensive, the FIA apparently chose to forget the history and turn the WRC in to a prototype series. And so began the slow decline.

I know, I know, this is a massive over-simplification, but I think my point stands: the cars have no relevance to anything, but the manufacturers like to pretend they do (annoying; we're not idiots) and, most importantly of all, the gripower ratio is all out of whack. But, that’s enough problems; it’s time for a solution.

At the moment there is not a single manufacturer that builds a car that it can go to the WRC with. That seems weird as I write it down. You want in to world rallying? You’ve pretty much got to build a custom, from-the-ground-up racing machine. No matter how ‘cheap’ the FIA makes WRC, that’s an enormous barrier to entry and a pointless exercise for any manufacturer (here it comes) 'in the current climate'.

There is a way out of the doldrums though. The recently-launched-on-the-quiet Subaru BRZ and Toyota GT86 and the slew of similar rear-wheel-drive coupes on the market and hitting motor shows are the perfect basis for a renewed and re-invigorated World Rally Championship (if you’re not already nodding your head in agreement, go to YouTube and type in ‘Mark 2 Escort, Kris Meeke’ and you’ll get the idea). Joining them would be the Mazda MX5 (hurrah!) and, providing that Audi was willing to build a few hundred rear-wheel drive versions of its TT, we could see one of the most iconic rallying manufacturers back in the WRC. Alfa Romeo 4C, you say? Why not?

Now, I know this might seem a bit pie in the sky, but give it some thought and it makes perfect sense. Right now Subaru, Toyota, Hyundai, Alfa Romeo, BMW, Mazda, Lotus and (with a bit of artistic licence) Audi all build a road car that could compete in this new World Rally Championship with the simple addition of some lightness, a roll cage and the aforementioned sump guard, gravel tyres and nutter behind the wheel.

So there you have it. A World Rally Championship based on road cars being put miles outside their comfort zone – a test of man and machine and a true spectacle, contested in cars that you and I can not only theoretically walk into a showroom and buy, but might actually be able to afford one day. Fancy that. Most importantly of all though – sideways!

The total mess the WRC is in at the moment is a chance for the FIA to bring the World Rally Championship back to basics. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity to strip the series back and start again, I just hope they have the balls to take it.

Bring back Group B cars......

And then, of course you'd have to ban everybody from playing in old Subarus/Evos/S2000-spec cars/Old WRC cars/Home built specials because WRC has to be the fastest. Also, not only does your 'solution' require require hundreds of people the throw there now useless cars away, they also have to buy a new car that is very low and has short-travel suspension so will require a lot of modification before they can even drive it on gravel.

All this at a time when there is very little money flowing around.

This is probably a big part of the problem I think, manufacturers don't want a 'lesser' class having faster cars than them even if they aren't eligible for the same championship.

Blimey, the internet really has killed attention spans, hasn't it?

Rear wheel drive cars. Cars that you can actually buy.

The first one is really to bring back some obvious 'movement' to the cars, rather than Mark 2 Escort nostalgia. 4WD is now so effective and complex (combined with incredible tyre technology) rallying doesn't look quite as hairy as it used to. Everything happens too quickly and the range of movement between 'fast' and 'crash' is far too fine.

The second is because I'm sick of watching a sport that was borne out of the idea of seeing how far you could push a road car being contested by custom built race machines, which is in itself a huge barrier to entry.

I think you mean outright speed rather than stage times, because rallying without stage times is drifting.....

Everybody cares about overall stage times. What would be the point of spending all that money developing a RWD WRC car when an S2000 spec car would be far faster? Nobody would bother so AWD would have to be scrapped.

RWD cars wouldn't move around like Mk2 Escorts either, the stability has come from advances in tyre and suspension technology. Look at every other modern motorsport, we don't see RWD circuit racers sliding around like they used to.

But the point is you wouldn't spend 'all that money' developing a RWD WRC, you would be rallying a modified road car (like someone else said) Group A style, but with RWD/if it's not RWD on the road get lost stipulated in the regs.

I know what you're saying - 'what's the point of LMP1 if the GT3 cars are faster?' - kind of thing right? I get that, but it's that sort of attitude that is stifling WRC.

Just look at MotoGP and Superbikes at the moment - I know they don't share a track, but bear with me - MotoGP is getting quite boring, Superbikes are INCREDIBLE at the moment, and that's reflected in their relative popularity (waning, waxing). A MotoGP bike would DESTROY a Superbike in every area, but it doesn't matter - all spectators care about is spectacle, I think. Especially in things like rallying.

Of course they wouldn't move around like Mk2 Escorts, but they'd be a lot more mobile than a current spec WRC car - especially on a loose surface. You also regulate tyre widths.

People tend to get this bit of rallying mixed up.

This is a brief MASSIVELY simplified history of rallying cars:

People start rallying road cars

Manufacturers start rallying their road cars

Manufacturers realise that if they build a road car that's designed for rallying, they can win rallying

Building a road car for rallying gets expensive, so manufacturers start wavering on their commitment to rallying

FIA craps its pants and says 'oh just do whatever you want, forget about the road car bit'

The last thing we need back is homologation, what we need to have back is the idea of the WRC being a production car-based series. Honestly, the bit about rear-wheel drive is incidental really. A happy coming together of the fact that these cars would be perfect for a win on Sunday sell on Monday type approach, as they're all (I think) in the sub-£30k price bracket, they're RWD so might be a bit more exciting on stage and lots of manufacturers are building that sort of car at the moment.

4WD is only a problem because no one is really building 4WD 'rallyable' cars at the moment. It's the reason that the WRC is full of protptypes. They're stuck on this idea that a rally car should be a 4WD hatchback. And that's a mistake.

If you throw out anything that isn't RWD then you'll throw out all three manufacturers currently in the sport. Great idea. There is no guarantee that BMW/Toyota/Mazda etc would be interested in stepping in.

MotoGP got boring once they started trying to slow them down, which is essentially what you want to do with WRC.

Regulating tyre widths won't make the cars move around more, more sliding = more tyre wear so driver will avoid it.

My last point is everyone likes to avoid on PH: WRC is still popular in France, Scandinavia, Spain, Portugal, Japan, Argentina and getting more popular in the USA. Even in the "boring" times with the C4 vs Focus stages were cancelled because too many spectators turned up to watch. The reason it isn't popular in the UK is because we don't have any top class drivers competing.