A vision for WRC

[bigbadbikercats]

Why the hang-up on RWD versus FWD? I can't speak for anybody else but I was quite happy watching Minis, Saabs (2-strokes, V4s, or Turbos - I'm not fussy!), Lancia Fulvias and the like taking on the RWD stuff :-)

[MrKipling43]

bigbadbikercats said:

Why the hang-up on RWD versus FWD? I can't speak for anybody else but I was quite happy watching Minis, Saabs (2-strokes, V4s, or Turbos - I'm not fussy!), Lancia Fulvias and the like taking on the RWD stuff :-)

Honestly, it was more that I love the idea of seeing the cars I mentioned in rally spec. And, yes, I do have a bit of a soft spot for sideways rally cars.

But, I'm REALLY glad you got the spirit of what I was trying to say!

[EDLT]

MrKipling43 said:

Well obviously you would approach them before you threw the current regs in the bin!

And if they say they aren't interested, or if they copy BMW and decided they are not interested later on?

MrKipling43 said:

No, MotoGP got boring when there started to be more grip than power.

Yes, when they fitted smaller engines to slow the bikes down. They didn't increase the grip levels.

MrKipling43 said:

Not if it's faster they won't. Make the tyres harder, and make them narrower.

That still won't make sliding faster, they'll just slow down even more so they've got traction coming out of the corner. You'd have to enforce a single tyre manufacturer too, which WRC doesn't have. The only reason everyone (except Dimack at the end of last year) uses the same tyres is because those are the best ones. You can't go around making silly regulations on a whim when the cars have to be road legal.

MrKipling43 said:

I'm sorry, but while you're right that it is more popular in those countries you listed than the UK, it's nothing like as massive as it was. And if it's so popular, why aren't people falling over themselves to promote it, and put it on their TV station?

Prove it. If stages are being cancelled that makes it pretty popular imo. How do you know that people aren't trying to get the TV rights? A Swedish TV channel is trying to throw together a deal in a couple of weeks, they sound pretty keen to me, these things normally take months.

MrKipling43 said:

I mean, are you seriously suggesting that the WRC is just fine as it is? Are you saying that it's ok that it's not really rallying anymore?

No, but until the company that owned North One went bust (North One was doing fine) WRC was getting better. The second half of last season and this season's Monte Carlo were very good. A solution that involves throwing everything away and starting over is stupid.

You are being pedantic over who exactly owns the teams, manufacturer supported teams are nothing new.

You are just plane wrong if you think a DullTM car is more like a road car than the countryman. But again, rally cars that bare little resemblance to the road car is nothing new and not a symptom of the current low interest in rallying on this forum.

[mrmr96]

MrKipling43 said:

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.

Sorry, the subtlety is lost on me; what's the difference?

[DanDC5]

mrmr96 said:

MrKipling43 said:

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.

Sorry, the subtlety is lost on me; what's the difference?

About £400k per car.

[groomi]

MrKipling43 said:

The DTM car they'll be racing has more in common with an M3 than the WRC ryman has in common with the MINI road car.

I'd be incredibly surprised if that is true. I doubt there is a single component carried over.

[Jerry Can]

lots of points raised here, very few of which I agree with. So you can have my perspective and like it

Cars

quite happy with the current regs. I actually like the size of the cars currently used, and the rules about allowing a manufacturer to develop 4wd cars is to allow those that don't an opportunity to compete. I would however like the restrictors removed, so that the cars have around 420hp, maybe take a bit of weight out them, but put a speed limiter via a fixed final drive ratio that limits top speed to 130mph. The MINI countryman is the only car currently competing that is actually available as a road car - or will be soon. The New Countryman Cooper S is 4wd and 1.6l turbo. I want to see cars that look a little like the ones you can buy in the showroom. I might however concede that rally does something like NASCAR where it is a spec chassis but different bodywork engine. That might work.
Also a bit more power and the cars will slide around a bit more.

TV

Whilst I am not happy at the current shenanigans going on with the media, I suspect it is probably for the best, but only because the sport needs a route and branches review. I've never really subscribed to live rallying on TV, it works better as a highlights package telling the story of the event. But that takes someone with talent to create that, not north one or eurosport.
Rallies
I'd like to see a variety of rallies, from 24 hour sprints with no rest halts to 5 days marathons. Basically the rule should be for every 18 hours of competition you get a min 6 hours of sleep. That could mean you start a rally at midnight, compete all the way through to 6pm, and then start again the following day at midnight, or later if you want even more variety. Make cloverleaf an option, not compulsory.
WRC
The WRC rallies should have the fastest cars, so adapt the current rules to make that the case. The WRC round of each country should have a rally within a rally, within a rally etc. The WRC boys do the whole event, SWRC, GP N etc do part of the event. As does the national championship and historics. Ideally there should be around 120 cars per event , even if only 20-30 do all the stages.

So there are the answers - SEOT

Edited by Jerry Can on Wednesday 8th February 14:32

[MrKipling43]

EDLT said:

And if they say they aren't interested, or if they copy BMW and decided they are not interested later on?

Then you're left with a series that is actually accessible to privateers.

EDLT said:

Yes, when they fitted smaller engines to slow the bikes down. They didn't increase the grip levels.

And the result of the attempt to slow them down was a relative increase in grip.

EDLT said:

That still won't make sliding faster, they'll just slow down even more so they've got traction coming out of the corner.

I don't think that's necessarily true. If it was, rally cars would never go/have gone sideways. They frequently did, and still do in historics.

EDLT said:

Prove it.

Very hard to get reliable figures on attendance, but I think looking at crowds on the coverage proves that it's not as huge as it once was.

Also, the number of cars available for WRC in 2012: three (MINI, Fiesta and C3)

2008: five (C4, Focus, Impreza, 307 and SX4)

2004: six (Impreza, Xsara, Focus, Accent, Fabia, 307 and Lancer)

2000: seven (Lancer, Impreza, Focus, Cordoba, 206, Octavia, Accent)

1990: 11 (Integrale, Celica, 323, Galant, 90, Kadett, Legacy, 200SX, M3, Golf, Sierra Cozzeh)

1980: Wikipedia starts to get a bit vague now, but Fiat, Datsun, Ford, Mercedes, Opel, Talbot, Toyota, Peugeot, Porsche, Lancia, Vauxhall, VW, Renault, Triumph, Mitsubishi and FSO (?!) all scored point.

Now, I know manufacturer involvement is not the be all and end all, but either the sport isn't as popular, or it's far too expensive. I suspect a combination of both.

EDLT said:

No, but until the company that owned North One went bust (North One was doing fine) WRC was getting better. The second half of last season and this season's Monte Carlo were very good. A solution that involves throwing everything away and starting over is stupid.

I'm not sure that it was to be honest and I don't think that throwing everything away and starting again is a bad thing. F1 did it in 2009 and it has been a huge success.

EDLT said:

You are being pedantic over who exactly owns the teams, manufacturer supported teams are nothing new.

I know, and I did say that. But manufacturer-supported teams are usually a supplement to, rather than a replacement for, full factory teams.

EDLT said:

You are just plane wrong if you think a DullTM car is more like a road car than the countryman. But again, rally cars that bare little resemblance to the road car is nothing new and not a symptom of the current low interest in rallying on this forum.

Are you sure about that?

The Countryman bears a vague resemblence to the road car, but in reality is a from-the-ground-up racing car.

The M3 DTM bears a vague resemblence to the road car, but in reality is a from-the-ground-up racing car.

Countryman WRC has a race specific engine, only related to the road car's engine (by coincidence) by capacity.

M3 DTM has a race specific engine, only related to the road car's engine (by coincidence) by configuration.

Countryman road car is front wheel drive, WRC is 4WD

M3 road car is rear wheel drive, M3 DTM is rear wheel drive.

Edited by MrKipling43 on Wednesday 8th February 15:29

[MrKipling43]

groomi said:

I'd be incredibly surprised if that is true. I doubt there is a single component carried over.

There's not a single component carried over on either I should think. At least the BMW is front engined, rear wheel drive.

[MrKipling43]

Jerry Can said:

lots of sensible stuff

Apart from the NASCAR bit, I'd accept basically everything you've said there if it became the new WRC.

I did call the thread A vision for WRC, not THE vision for WRC.

[davepoth]

mrmr96 said:

Sorry, the subtlety is lost on me; what's the difference?

Technically the same thing, but with homologation I guess we're talking about doing an RS200; building a specific rally weapon and then producing a couple of hundred roadgoing replicas to satisfy the regulations.

for a production car you would be looking at taking a standard 2000cc car off the production line, fitting a roll cage and a fuel cell, and painting a number on the side.

[MrKipling43]

davepoth said:

Technically the same thing, but with homologation I guess we're talking about doing an RS200; building a specific rally weapon and then producing a couple of hundred roadgoing replicas to satisfy the regulations.

Yes. Although, Escort Cossie, Celica GT4, Impreza STi (certainly 22B) and Lancer Evo all fall within that category as well.

[dtrump]

Rallycross, 600+bhp fantastic to watch. yes I know its circuit racing but...

WRC, slightly over 300bhp. Sorry but with road cars pumping out what they do, I just cannot get excited by this.

With increased power comes increased danger, but come on, these are professional racing drivers, the safety is getting better and better. I'd like more than anything to see Loeb have to work hard for his millions

[Al W]

I broadly agree with MrK. I'd be more interested in rallying if the cars bore any (mechanical) resemblance to cars I could actually buy.

As I understand it WRC was brought in to encourage more manufacturer involvement, as they wouldn't have to build thousands of GpA 4WD production cars. However, it hasn't had the intended result and none of the current WRC cars have any relevance to the respective manufacturers' production cars. Instead of each manufacturer having to develop a WRC prototype from a blank sheet, why couldn't a revised formula mandate 2WD instead of 4WD and why are some posters suggesting this would be more expensive than 4WD?

My waning interest has nothing to do with driver nationality, as suggested above.

[EDLT]

MrKipling43 said:

Then you're left with a series that is actually accessible to privateers.

Which is bad, in your view because you want brand new cars being developed, right? Privateers aren't going to do that. BTCC cars are almost silhouettes now and still smaller teams are using old cars.

MrKipling43 said:

And the result of the attempt to slow them down was a relative increase in grip.

No. The grip level almost stayed the same while engine capacity was reduced, talking about "relative" increases is just moving the goal posts.

MrKipling43 said:

I don't think that's necessarily true. If it was, rally cars would never go/have gone sideways. They frequently did, and still do in historics.

Historics have very old fashioned suspension, but with modern tyres they actually slide around less than they used to. Modern RWD rally cars do not slide around like old Escorts did.

MrKipling43 said:

Very hard to get reliable figures on attendance, but I think looking at crowds on the coverage proves that it's not as huge as it once was.

Also, the number of cars available for WRC in 2012: three (MINI, Fiesta and C3)

2008: five (C4, Focus, Impreza, 307 and SX4)

2004: six (Impreza, Xsara, Focus, Accent, Fabia, 307 and Lancer)

2000: seven (Lancer, Impreza, Focus, Cordoba, 206, Octavia, Accent)

1990: 11 (Integrale, Celica, 323, Galant, 90, Kadett, Legacy, 200SX, M3, Golf, Sierra Cozzeh)

1980: Wikipedia starts to get a bit vague now, but Fiat, Datsun, Ford, Mercedes, Opel, Talbot, Toyota, Peugeot, Porsche, Lancia, Vauxhall, VW, Renault, Triumph, Mitsubishi and FSO (?!) all scored point.

Now, I know manufacturer involvement is not the be all and end all, but either the sport isn't as popular, or it's far too expensive. I suspect a combination of both.

Moving the goal posts once again. Manufacturer participation has almost nothing to do with the attendance of fans. IRC has more manufacturer backed teams but less coverage. Some of those manufacturers didn't do full seasons and were not competitive, the SX4 for example.

MrKipling43 said:

I'm not sure that it was to be honest and I don't think that throwing everything away and starting again is a bad thing. F1 did it in 2009 and it has been a huge success.

The changes from the 2008 to 2009 F1 cars was tiny compared to what you are suggesting. It is more like throwing away everything they had and turning up in jumped up Formula Fords.

MrKipling43 said:

Are you sure about that?

The Countryman bears a vague resemblence to the road car, but in reality is a from-the-ground-up racing car.

The M3 DTM bears a vague resemblence to the road car, but in reality is a from-the-ground-up racing car.

Countryman WRC has a race specific engine, only related to the road car's engine (by coincidence) by capacity.

M3 DTM has a race specific engine, only related to the road car's engine (by coincidence) by configuration.

Countryman road car is front wheel drive, WRC is 4WD

M3 road car is rear wheel drive, M3 DTM is rear wheel drive.

I am sure. The Countryman WRC car has to use far more cosmetic parts than the DTM car, the driver is still positioned to one side not in the middle, it is available with 4WD and they aren't allowed the ridiculous aerodynamic body kits. The WRC car is even road legal.

[GarryA]

Jerry Can said:

The WRC round of each country should have a rally within a rally, within a rally etc.

[MrKipling43]

EDLT said:

Which is bad, in your view because you want brand new cars being developed, right? Privateers aren't going to do that. BTCC cars are almost silhouettes now and still smaller teams are using old cars.

No, that's sort of the opposite of my view. The reasons I listed the cars I did is because they already exist. A privateer team in 'my WRC' doesn't have to go to M-Sport and say, here's 400,000 Euros, can I buy a WRC car, please? They can buy a GT86 from the showroom (like the £16k one on the homepage) and turn it into a 'WRC' machine themselves. Like, I dunno, what rallying used to be about! If WRC was like this now, Kris Meeke would be getting ready for Sweden at the moment.

EDLT said:

No. The grip level almost stayed the same while engine capacity was reduced, talking about "relative" increases is just moving the goal posts.

No it's not. More power than grip means this:



It doesn't matter if you've got 1,000bhp and foot wide cold slicks, or 150bhp and van tyres - you're sliding.

EDTL said:

Historics have very old fashioned suspension, but with modern tyres they actually slide around less than they used to. Modern RWD rally cars do not slide around like old Escorts did.

No, of course not, but still more than a 4WD WRC car, which is basically my whole point.

EDTL said:

The changes from the 2008 to 2009 F1 cars was tiny compared to what you are suggesting. It is more like throwing away everything they had and turning up in jumped up Formula Fords.

Yeah, ok, that's fair enough.

EDTL said:

I am sure. The Countryman WRC car has to use far more cosmetic parts than the DTM car, the driver is still positioned to one side not in the middle, it is available with 4WD and they aren't allowed the ridiculous aerodynamic body kits. The WRC car is even road legal.

Ok, I wasn't aware that the Countryman came in 4WD. But you have to think of it from a brand point of view. Putting an M3 next to a DTM M3 and saying 'look, motorsport. Mmmmm.' is probably far more relevant than doing the same thing with a Countryman. I imagine that's their thinking.

[interloper]

Now this is a topic close to my heart, part of me thinks banning 4wd and making it into a RWD championship would be a great idea. Problem is that may well scare off the existing entrants and with no guarantee that Sabura, Toyota etc would take up the slack, you would go from a rather sick patient to a dead one in quite short order!

Another part of the problem is that the rallies arent the big events they used to be (possibly with the exception of the Monte), I seriously think a return to longer events like the good old RAC and the Safari would re capture the publics imagination.

Its a chicken and egg situation, if the public dont care for it, the manufacturers wont support it and the whle thing loses steam, which is whats been happeneing for the last few years.

[GravelBen]

MrKipling43 said:

davepoth said:

Technically the same thing, but with homologation I guess we're talking about doing an RS200; building a specific rally weapon and then producing a couple of hundred roadgoing replicas to satisfy the regulations.

Yes. Although, Escort Cossie, Celica GT4, Impreza STi (certainly 22B) and Lancer Evo all fall within that category as well.

And there is still homologation for PWRC which runs Group-N regs - Impreza Spec-C and so on.

[anonymous-user]

MrKipling43 said:

davepoth said:

Technically the same thing, but with homologation I guess we're talking about doing an RS200; building a specific rally weapon and then producing a couple of hundred roadgoing replicas to satisfy the regulations.

Yes. Although, Escort Cossie, Celica GT4, Impreza STi (certainly 22B) and Lancer Evo all fall within that category as well.

22B wasnt a homologation special, it was the other way round with the 22B's design following the WRC cars basic profiles as a sales tool, all the panels are different on the 22B to the WRC car, it also has a 2.2 litre engine which wasnt allowed in rallying, 2.0 litre max at the time.