2022 Rallying Thread (WRC, ERC and national rally)

[greeny12]

LukeBrown66 said:

I would suggest that stuff like what used to be Blancpain and IMSA would not command an audience to warrant pay tv really, but it doesn't stop any series trying.
.

The Fanatec GTs (ex-Blancpain) gets shown live regularly on the Sky Sports F1 channel, but I suspect that's mostly to fill space in non-race weekends, which Ratel is very careful to steer clear of! Helpful to me, for sure, as it's much easier to watch on catch-up via my Virgin Media box...

[DelicaL400]

thepawbroon said:

I am a dyed-in-the-wool rally fan, former competitor, organiser, marshal etc. I signed up to WRC+ All Live last year, but despite sitting at a desk all day / working from home, I barely watched it. For some reason, live rallying coverage seem to suck all the joy and drama out of it, and the more there is = the duller it seems.

I used to have BT Sport which showed the WRC All Live stuff. I tried watching but a combination of too much in-car, fairly dull external shots and an annoying (in my opinion!) commentary team meant I didn't really enjoy it. I no longer have BT Sport and I'm not missing the WRC coverage, the only WRC I see now is some of the spectator highlights on YouTube which I think make more exciting viewing than the official stuff.

[ArnageWRC]

thepawbroon said:

I am a dyed-in-the-wool rally fan, former competitor, organiser, marshal etc. I signed up to WRC+ All Live last year, but despite sitting at a desk all day / working from home, I barely watched it. For some reason, live rallying coverage seem to suck all the joy and drama out of it, and the more there is = the duller it seems.

Does anyone else feel like that? I could stand all day in a forest and watch people pootle by at the back of the field, but watching the best in the world in-car on live TV? Nope....I recall feeling the same back in the McRae / Burns heyday and live stages.

Now, I keep an eye on eWRC and Twitter during the event, and sit back to watch the ITV4 highlight during the week after.

Funnily enough, there was a discussion on Twitter just after Rally Portugal about this; the coverage is stale and unimaginative - and far too much 'in car'. It's not really selling the sport like it should. Instead of all stages live, I think they should pick 1 or 2 of each loop and cover it properly. And give the top WRC2 drivers coverage - they get very little.

[mfmman]

ArnageWRC said:

thepawbroon said:

I am a dyed-in-the-wool rally fan, former competitor, organiser, marshal etc. I signed up to WRC+ All Live last year, but despite sitting at a desk all day / working from home, I barely watched it. For some reason, live rallying coverage seem to suck all the joy and drama out of it, and the more there is = the duller it seems.

Does anyone else feel like that? I could stand all day in a forest and watch people pootle by at the back of the field, but watching the best in the world in-car on live TV? Nope....I recall feeling the same back in the McRae / Burns heyday and live stages.

Now, I keep an eye on eWRC and Twitter during the event, and sit back to watch the ITV4 highlight during the week after.

Funnily enough, there was a discussion on Twitter just after Rally Portugal about this; the coverage is stale and unimaginative - and far too much 'in car'. It's not really selling the sport like it should. Instead of all stages live, I think they should pick 1 or 2 of each loop and cover it properly. And give the top WRC2 drivers coverage - they get very little.

You could add the slow pull up to the camera, opening of the door whilst the driver takes his helmet off and puts his sponsored cap on, then basically gives the same interview as they give at the end of every stage (and each driver says basically the same thing). Trouble with tyres, very slippy, probably could have been 10 seconds faster. Repeated, repeated, repeated.

Boring, save it and interview each driver at the end of the day

[Drumroll]

I like thepawbroon am a died-in-the-wool rally fan but have to agree the WRC coverage does nothing to keep the regular motivated to watch. Certainly can't see it getting new people into watching.

[Dynion Araf Uchaf]

I’ve said it on these pages many times before. The rally should be told as a story, and certainly the roundup of the event that’s broadcast on tele should be substantially different to the live feed stuff. There’s not enough atmosphere to the shots, no background stuff or back stories of even focusing on the event through the eyes of one driver.

It could portray the event so much more evocatively but it’s beyond these jokers.

[lb3nson]

I’ve started watching the WRC updated that Dirtfish do on Youtube. It’s pretty limited but at least presented with some obvious passion for the sport.

[Ranger 6]

thepawbroon said:

.....sit back to watch the ITV4 highlight during the week after.

Yes, me too - either that or the Red Bull TV coverage over the weekend. My TV has the app so it's really easy to pick that up in the evening.

[ArnageWRC]

Dates for the 2023 Roger Albert Clark Rally announced:

https://twitter.com/RACRMC/status/1534426314354073...

[Baron Greenback]

Ranger 6 said:

thepawbroon said:

.....sit back to watch the ITV4 highlight during the week after.

Yes, me too - either that or the Red Bull TV coverage over the weekend. My TV has the app so it's really easy to pick that up in the evening.

Sardegna took no prisoners,felt sorry for Elfyn Evans very unlucky event for sure.

[WantSagaris]

Dynion Araf Uchaf said:

I’ve said it on these pages many times before. The rally should be told as a story, and certainly the roundup of the event that’s broadcast on tele should be substantially different to the live feed stuff. There’s not enough atmosphere to the shots, no background stuff or back stories of even focusing on the event through the eyes of one driver.

It could portray the event so much more evocatively but it’s beyond these jokers.

So many other motorsports series have or are adapting to the times far better than WRC. It seems Extreme E might fill the off-road void left by WRC in the future, gets plenty of BBC coverage.

[Ranger 6]

WantSagaris said:

....It seems Extreme E might fill the off-road void left by WRC in the future, gets plenty of BBCITV4 coverage.

No, definitely not.

Extreme-E is an on-line only, sprint event. I'm guessing here, but the cars can barely stretch to 10 miles of flat out competition. For the UK round last year they had to wind down the power down as driving through the Dorset mud was so hard on the batteries, and they didn't want them running out of charge.

If you're actually working on site it just takes ages to do anything with the need to charge after every outing so there's hours between practice sessions and races. Unlike WRC, the endurance nature of the rounds is staying awake in between sessions. The whole event can be seen in an hour's summary and unlike WRC where it's genuinely the highlights, you will see all the competitive elements. The actual event takes 4 days.

While it's (mostly) very good to watch on the TV, I'd say Etreme-E is a competitor for RallyCross.

[ArnageWRC]

As poor as the WRC is for coverage, I don't think they need to worry about Extreme-E, at least not yet.

[confucuis]

For me anyway it's just that there's so much motorsport on now that by the time I've caught up with everything, I don't have the energy to comment or talk on here about motorsport(WRC or F1), but I always read the threads!

Moreover, rallying for me has always been tarmac rallying, there's not much gravel rallying in Ireland. So I'm not super interested in the loose surface rallies which happens to make up most of the WRC (which I think also unfairly favours the Scandinavian drivers)

10.5 of the 13 are "loose" surface, Spain + Monaco are mixed hence the .5. Belgium, and Croatia are the only pure tarmac rounds that I really love but that's my personal opinion about the championship!

[ArnageWRC]

confucuis said:

10.5 of the 13 are "loose" surface, Spain + Monaco are mixed hence the .5. Belgium, and Croatia are the only pure tarmac rounds that I really love but that's my personal opinion about the championship!

I'd agree with that, and always have; it should be a much even spread between surfaces; bring back Ireland, Deutschland which are both Tarmac, but completely different.
And the other point, Tarmac is road relevant to the cars sold on the forecourts.....

[Tony1963]

I’m not so sure that being “road relevant” is important at all. Quite why any manufacturer is involved in WRC escapes me. Rallying used to be about proving the reliability of a car in tough conditions, but I think we can all agree that this was achieved, for road cars, a long time ago, so the ‘win on Sunday, sell on Monday” mantra no longer applies.
The only development now is the hybrid side of it all, but do any manufacturers make anything of this to the buying public? Not as far as I can see. In fact, most people couldn’t give a hoot about rallying now. Back in the 80s, even my mum could name a handful of drivers and manufacturers involved!
Most road cars are still 2wd, not made of carbon fibre, don’t have huge wings, and don’t pootle about on race rubber while making silly noises.

It’s just an expensive circus, like F1, that swallows sponsorship money as fast as it can be thrown at it. So, to me, road car relevance counts for nothing.

[ArnageWRC]

Tony1963 said:

I
It’s just an expensive circus, like F1, that swallows sponsorship money as fast as it can be thrown at it. So, to me, road car relevance counts for nothing.

Here is the issue; F1 is viewed as offering value to their sponsors. Just what the WRC is offering is the question - there aren't many big money sponsors, as the sport provides very little value.

As for 'road relevance' we keep getting told manufacturers will only be interested if it is; in fact this year's new hybrid regs were a sop to the few remaining manufacturers.

[Tony1963]

ArnageWRC said:

Here is the issue; F1 is viewed as offering value to their sponsors. Just what the WRC is offering is the question - there aren't many big money sponsors, as the sport provides very little value.

As for 'road relevance' we keep getting told manufacturers will only be interested if it is; in fact this year's new hybrid regs were a sop to the few remaining manufacturers.

Agreed.
I bet there’d be space for regional rather than global championships soon, and no manufacturer involvement needed, as with the BTCC. Rally cars are horrifically expensive, and all for what? Pretty much nothing at all.

[GravelBen]

ArnageWRC said:

confucuis said:

10.5 of the 13 are "loose" surface, Spain + Monaco are mixed hence the .5. Belgium, and Croatia are the only pure tarmac rounds that I really love but that's my personal opinion about the championship!

I'd agree with that, and always have; it should be a much even spread between surfaces; bring back Ireland, Deutschland which are both Tarmac, but completely different.
And the other point, Tarmac is road relevant to the cars sold on the forecourts.....

Gravel roads are still common and relevant in many countries (like for me in NZ), roads where you live might be all tarmac but assuming only tarmac is relevant to road cars is a pretty narrow-minded view. Apologies if I've misunderstood your meaning there.

I'd prefer if WRC cars still had more relevance to production cars though.

I get the point about spread of events between surfaces, but I don't think the current calendar is quite as unbalanced as suggested.

1 tarmac/snow mixed (Monte)
1 snow (Sweden)
4 tarmac (Croatia, Belgium, Spain, Japan - Spain is full tarmac this year not mixed)
7 gravel (Portugal, Italy, Kenya, Estonia, Finland, Greece, NZ)

But those gravel rallies have some very different surfaces between them too - 3 rough narrow gravel, 1 dirt, 3 smooth wider gravel.

Personally I find WRC Portugal and Sardegna similar enough in character that I wouldn't mind one of them being dropped for something different, and you could probably make the same argument about Estonia being quite similar to Finland.

For a 'world' championship, I'd like to see more than 3 events outside Europe though!

Edited by GravelBen on Saturday 11th June 13:16

[Tony1963]

I just can’t summon up the interest in a championship that doesn’t visit the U.K. And when it last visited the U.K. those years were centred on Wales. Rally GB? No.

Gimme back the real challenges of the 70s and 80s where the media worked almost as hard as the crews!