The cars look great and I think the WRC is such a great sport but the TV coverage is just not doing it justice. OK, Loeb is out on his own but there is still plenty of thrills and spills lower down the order.

10.30pm, two of the most annoying commentators yapping all the time, an obscure TV channel, no live Power stages, no 'flow' to the programme - I cannot believe the Ford, Citroen and Mini marketing guys in the UK don't get together and come up with a deal with a decent TV channel to put something together better together.

Rant over.

It is actually very good imo. The commentators 'click'. I just wish it were in HD

I used to watch it until around 2005 when i lost interest

The new cars are ok.. but not as interesting.
I miss the mad Imprezas and lancers ...they seem all too samey now.

Citroen/Loab are impressive.. but it's similar to when Schumacher was dominating (people found it dull)
I still want to love it though
The FIA need to start supporting it more. they always seem too focused on F1.
I really hope the coverage is sorted out.

The coverage is so bad because the sport is so bad at the moment.

I have no idea of the result last weekend, but I'll lay a large sum of cash that Loeb won, with one of the Fords second (probably Latvala if he didn't crash) and Hirvonen/the other Ford third; right?

It's not just the predicability; people used to watch rallying for the ultimate test of a car on public roads all over the world. Now, it's a "TV friendly" sport that ironically, isn't very TV friendly.

People clamour for the days of Group B, etc which is never going to happen but they need to do something.

I have no desire to watch a manufacturer's supermini that has been converted to 4WD and bears no resemblance to anything I can buy in a showroom. I want to see proper cars, 4WD or not, with proper, professional drivers doing proper stages.

This means at least 1 snow event, 1 'safari' event, Monte Carlo must be a championship event every year (who's genius idea was it to drop that??? Even F1 wouldn't be stupid enough to drop Monaco) Tarmac events, gravel events, an event in North America.

It's not hard. I'm just surprised that no entrepeneur in the industry has jumped on it and turned it around.

You have confirmed my point - all of what you mentioned has happened: the south america event is now the endurance round, the snow was sweden, monte is back, three tarmac events, lots of gravel events and Mexico is in North America. They even added a Power stage which is an excellent idea and when ESPN showed them live last year it was a must see on a Sunday.

Why don't you know this - it is because the marketing / TV is so poor. Elsewhere in the world there are huge numbers of fans turing up to watch yet we get bugger all in the UK.

I agree that Ford tend to shoot themselves in the foot every rally so Loeb doesn't even have to try very hard to win but come on, there is still plenty going's on down the field to make it interesting.

Just don't get why Ford inparticular accept poor coverage in the UK

The coverage isn't great - but that's because the product isn't good, at the moment. Also, the picture & sound quality on MotorsTV is patchy.

The WRC could and should be a fantastic sport - but has been run appallingly badly over the last 10 years. Manufacturers, media, fans all deserting it. Go watch it live, and the top boys are really on it - but there aren't enough of them. In 2002 there were 7 teams and about 20 factory drivers; Makinen, Gronholm, Panizzi, Sainz, McRae, Loeb, Solberg all won events.

Hopefully RedBull can give the sport a kick up the @r5e, and the FiA and teams can see the bigger picture. Stop trying to ape F1, and return to differing types of events. Instead of the identikit events we've had the last 10 years. It's not rocket science.

It's not dislike, but dispair and frustration. For years we have watched the WRC lose direction and popularity. After the 'boom' of the mid 90's which was immense, and Richards decided that the WRC should be a mini F1 it all went wrong very quickly. The cars are too far removed from road cars, the routes became hopelessly unchallenging, what the drivers wanted (Loeb) was a 9-5, the teams wanted corporate venues while the spectators, sponsors and TV companies wanted a challenging exciting series. Rallying is not really a TV sport, however for the die hard fans it's still great to wwatch, but here in lies the challenge.

As such the sponsors dried up (look at the Mini debacle & Nokia pulling out), TV dissappeared and the sport floundered. At the start of 2011 things looked up with the new cars and the ESPN/Dave/Motors deal, but most people complained, Loeb still stuffed everyone and then to cap it all North One went bust less than a month before the 2012 season started. So this year there has been no promoter, no sponsors, no TV and no direction. With Rally GB having 30 entrants in a few weeks just shows the 'issues' in the 90's it was 160+ cars. Rally GB does seem to reflect the overall position of the WRC quite well, a badly thought out change of date, a route for teams to stay in nice hotels, not adding to the 'innovative' route from last year, trying to run it through an area where the tour of Britain is on the same few days, hence no interest.

However, things are looking up.....with Red Bull becoming the official promoter of the WRC this should really see a step change as they inject some much needed 'show' into the WRC. Much as I love Petter Solberg, it's time for him & Loeb to step aside and allow a new generation through. Ogier & Mikkleson in the VW, Latvala & Tanak in the Ford, Hirvonen & Neuville in the Citroen and perhaps Atkinson & Sordo in the Mini. Then 1 or 2 more manfacturers and things will really pick-up.

Admittedly it looks like Sky are going to start showing the WRC, however perhaps RB will suprise us and also do a deal with a free to air channel. But Sky & RB promoting the WRC could have a very positive effect on it.

Other reasons for us to be excited is that there is actually some good home grown talent starting to appear, they just need a break - Cronin, Breen, Meeke are all showing superb pace, and Evans is looking really sharp.

The WRC has been at such a low ebb for so many years, I think most fans felt it couldn't get any worse, but this year with pretty much no TV coverage and all the above problems had taken it to a new depth of hopelessness. So fingers crossed 2013, new promoters, some new challenging routes on events, exciting new drivers, new teams, there is a lot to be excited about and hopefully the new TV coverage will reflect this.

Glad I started this post now as I didn't know this. Cheered me up no end - hopefully it will come true. Really hope Mini put a decent team together as it seems a shame for a car with such great potential being driven by pay to drive people.

With most of the coverage being similar to a view out of a postbox rather than external coverage i'm afraid i don't tune in anymore for that.
If you could combine the WRC cars/drivers with Eurosports IRC style live coverage then i may start to become interested again.
I can't watch it as it is.

Is the 30 entrants thing true? If so, that's shocking to have such a low number