Discuss

Calendar, Teams, Drivers for the upcoming season

Firstly who should win? Loeb or Hirvonen.

Secondly, new homologations are now banned for WRCar right?

So Ford will continue to run the old shape front styling on the focus...

Thirdly, will provisions be made to enable better value for privateers?

Hurra

Kimi, the Ice-Cream-Man came to challenge the supra-dupra-champ Loeb in 2010.

Next step, MotoGP 2011 to challenge Rossi.

I hope they don't run away like Schumy did when Kimi came to Ferrrari.

Kimi, ebroren[sic] the conqueror.

Calendar: No Monte, WRC's loss is the IRC's gain

Teams: Not enough obviously. Ford for the manufacturers this year, surely

Drivers: loeb champ again - not much to discuss there really. Big battle (hopefully) between Petter & Mikko for best of the rest. Probably jari-matti's last chance in a factory car which unfortunately probably means more crashes, frustration for wilson, and a seat for solberg in the bp ford team in 2011

In before someone suggests Kimi has an actual chance at beating Loeb et al.

Loeb? No!
et al? Yes!

I've heard Petter Solberg is trying to build a team with semi-works support from Citröen and trying to get both Kimi and Gronhölm to race, but he needs to find the money. Cris Atkinson may race a Focus in half of the championship. I expect Ogier to continue, the kid seems talented. Gigi Galli is working to find the budget to return. I guess Stobart will cointinue with Henning and Wilson, and Munchi's racing eight rounds with Villagra. The new S2000 WC may be entertaining.

Chris Atkinson is going to be in Ken Block's new Focus WRC team...

BUT...please god, dont let us get invaded with stary eyed 14 year old fanboys for Kimi, thinking he is actually going to even vaguely challenge the top WRC fellas...Even Matt Wilson will spank the backside of Kimi in a WRC car... he has a long way to go.... in a couple of seasons he might have a chance...

In short...Kimi should stick to an S2000 car...build up his experience and then when the world equals out to a S2000 derivitive championship....Kimi will be in a much better chance to challenge IF... he decides to go rallying.

The S2000 World Cup is the desperate attempt by WRC organisers to drag more competitors to the WRC. Yet they get the joy of running around behind the WRC cars...worse roads...etc etc..

If I was any half respecting S2000 team, I would tell the WRC to stick it's World Cup in the WC! If people want a real close fought championship for S2000 cars, they have a fantastic series to run in, geared to those cars with classic events and rally supporters flocking by their hundreds of thousands to watch the series again live...

The WRC is going to have yet another year of patting each other on the back and saying....wow look how great our championship is...'The Kings new suit of invisible clothes' comes to mind.

In short...the WRC is currently a farce...and that is a crying shame.

Well, Kimi will be driving in 2010 WRC. F1's loss; WRC's gain
On the Kimi forum we hava lot of questions about if and where to watch the Rally stages LIVE.
Any help that you Autosport enthousiasts can provide in terms of live feed links is much appreciated

Edited: A PM is much appreciated

A reminder that any links to illegal streaming services will be withdrawn.

Gilraen...

There are very few stages covered "Live" anymore from the WRC with images. Splittimes, Radio, yes..but live images no...

It's simply too expensive as previously discussed in the Bernization thread. they tried.....they failed... the sport needs to revert to what made it once great..

Which drivers do we know so far?

Citroen
S Loeb
D Sordo

Ford
M Hirvonen
JM Latvala

Stobart Ford
M Wilson?
H Solberg?

Citroen Junior
S Ogier
K Raikkonen

Citroen Solberg
P Solberg?

DC Ford I believe;
K Block
C Atkinson

Probably then a bunch of privateers in their own entered WRC cars...

Have not heard of any major announcements for the S2000 World Cup...but then again, why would any team with half a brain, run behind a main field and get no coverage, when there is another global championship that is cheaper to enter, dedicated purely to the class! with even better coverage!

The WRC and IRC are both things I really want to get into. Can anyone recommend a website/book/magazine where they are explained in plain English. I've got to be honest and say I really don't understand how their points systems work

WRC is an FIA championship, so it's the same as F1 (10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1). IRC also uses this points system.

Unfortunately next season will feature idiotic 'day points'.

Have a look here as a starting point

http://www.wrc.com/jsp/index.jsp?lnk=270

Hopefully with Petter being in a more up to date car he can challenge for more than just podiums next season.

I just realised that Youtube UK has put up highlights for some full rally seasons.

http://www.youtube.com/show/worldrallychampionship

They have 2001/03 in there so far, and maybe more recent stuff will be included

you could use that in a sig

What is 'day points' ?

Points given for positions at the end of each day.

I don't like that the day's fastest driver has to sweep the roads the next day... it should be like it used to be: top 15 is reversed. At least Mr. Loeb agrees with me.

Do you think Block's got it to be competitive after some seasoning? I only know the guy from his youtube videos, awesome stuff...

I think he is going to be shocked at the standard in the WRC... lets not forget the amount of 'takes' it took Ken to make those airfield gymkhana style videos and jumps etc... Travis learned very quickly that he was really no where in the Production WRC and Ken I suspect is going to be a little shell shocked. Atkinson however will fit straight in and will be able to help Ken a lot in testing. I do however hope he starts to get results as it will certainly increase the profile of rallying in the US as the "X-Games" crowd are really starting to get into it.

Unfortunately the US is a long way off having the standard in its events that the WRC needs to have a round of the championship. As Nicky Grist once told me on Rally New York, home owners would often decide to leave their house 'mid-live-stage' and drive Wrong Direction to get to a near road...just so that they could go shopping ... apparently a Subaru flew over a crest and missed an oncoming car by a tiny margin. The vast majority of the populace near big Metropolitan areas dont understand why they cannot leave their house and their road is closed for an hour, let along trying to pursuade a man on a quad-bike with a rifle, hunting bears in the boonies, why he cannot ride down his favourite track.... Good luck with that one Marshall...

Personally if I were Ken, I would have started a team in the IRC, lower budget...sightly less spotlight, then had a couple of seasons before attempting the WRC.

Crest, what do you mean by the sport needing to revert back? Is it w.r.t to telecast? We see cricket test matches live all the time and they go for five full days. Why doesn't it work for rally?

I had another question for you. How come there are only two teams that challenge for championship? There are no other teams to even make up numbers, just junior teams of the manufacturers. Why don't we have any independents like Williams in F1? It is shocking to see people like Petter not having a chance at championship. Is WRC not worried about this?

Thanks, that's the kind of answer I was looking for. I figured his Rally America stats don't look too bad, but I admit I know nothing about that series. Now after reading up Pastrana's stats, if we use him as a yardstick, it supports what you say. It'll certainly be interesting to see how he does.


That sounds horrible But with regards to a WRC event in the US, I was always intrigued by the idea of a stage somewhere in the outbacks of Alaska. Somewhat of a logistical nightmare I guess, but even the name and location alone would draw some interest. At least there wouldn't be any grocery shoppers running wild.

so you mean every day is like a mini WRC event in itself?

LOL

Spa Hi, I'll try to answer specifically with regards TV. In days gone by, technology obviously was no quite as advanced as it is today and so it wouldentail sending in film crews deep into sometimes very long stages, like 37 miles of Kielder Forest, etc. The crews remain their all day, but had runners to drive through after the course closing cars to grab the tapes of the crews and take them back to rally HQ where they would use the footage, combined with some onboard and some heli footage to produce sequences and clips that were normally excellent.

From 2000 onwards there has been a drive to try and make the sport more of a televised event and thus they even started changing the event formats to better suit the possibility of Live TV footage. So now you had your start film crew, a mid stage crew and an end crew (doing the interviews) and more satellite dishes than you could shake a stick at, for the live stage timing, and tracking devices of each car and then with the sponsorship of Inmarsat, the ability to actually beam live images from the stages.

The problem is, despite them trying to reduce the sheer size area of the event with the clover leaf design, with groups of stages all returning to the central service, despite all this...it is still a huge area and to cover it all is very expensive in terms of sat time. With Cricket for example, you can set up the cameras , put two guys in a commentary booth and run everything via cables to a broadcast centre at the ground. With Rallying, you cannot leave kit in the stages unattended (gets stolen) and the editing suit for the TV is back at the service park, so if you are not using satellite to beam images back, you need a relay aircraft to bounce data off as a link, a you cannot get a line of sight in most rally regions, so you need to use an aircraft to bounce the signals to then on to the service park. Or ....via road... It is therefore logistically extremely tough to create the type of coverage that they 'thought' the mass populace wanted to see. What they forget and still forget is, Rallying has a core, huge base (well used to be huge) of dedicated fans who they could cater to and the passing fans then get drawn in. I'll cover what else I mean in another artile I hope to be finished with shortly (work has been in the way) on other areas where world rallying has gone wrong and what could easily be done to fix it.

In short...Rallying is not cut out for live TV...other than super specials or spectator special stages where the course creates a theatre style of viewing. Rally Sweden has a stage like this, Walters Arena and before that Sweet Lamb on Rally GB were typical of this in the past. So I therefore want to see the footage return to evening highlight shows where they keep their stupid halfwit D list celebs OFF the screen and simply have a few guys that know Rallying inside out and back to front with some personality and character, to host, do interviews, etc.

If you go look on YouTube for the old TopGear Rally Reports from the Network Q and RAC rallies...people got content they wanted to see. Lots of action and some good interviews out and about and EVERYTHING in the show related to rallying or the event, not as we saw this year, half the main Sunday Rally GB show, being taken up more focused on autotesting near Rally HQ.

As to your other question, The WRC used to have 8 manufacturers in it and now it has two. The current rights holder, North One Television has a boss called Neil Duncanson who openly stated that the WRC did not need anymore than 4....repeat FOUR, manufacturers in it. The man knows nothing about rallying but has been involved with the current mob who run the WRC, which is ISC and they under the leadership of Simon Long have completely lost sight of why they had 8 manufacturers in the sport. Again, I'll cover this in the article. It will be a bit of a long read, but if your interested in rallying, I think you might enjoy it.

Thanks a lot, Crest. I would love to read your article. I am a new rally fan. I have not followed earlier. I was drawn into this because of Kimi. But, I can assure you, I already like rally beyond Kimi. I now like the sport in general. I understand the point you say w.r.t to live coverage. But, there is no need to make the live telecast extravagant. Live coverage can be left to be very simplistic, just the onboards or just a couple of track-cams to go with it. The quality may not be great, but it does not have to be. Then we can have the highlights later, that is much more informative and extravagant. That's my thought.

When Makkinen, McRae, Burns, Sainz et all were competing in so may different cars, it was pretty exciting. Why need just 4 manufacturers? Can't the independents, not just privateers make it work, like Williams in F1? It is cruel to see someone like Petter not have a car to compete for championship. I like the characters of the drivers in general in rally.

Also, when you mean article, do you write for a site? I know that you competed in rallies. But, what's your connection with the world of rally now?

So, have I missed Block's announcement of his intentions to drive in the WRC next season?

Am really looking forward to his inclusion within the sport, which I think is a more pivotal moment in WRC’s development than a bored F1 driver who couldn't find a race seat

Heres one of the latest about Atkinsons potential involvement.
http://www.wrc.com/jsp/index.jsp?lnk=101&a...r%20opportunity

With regards the article, its just a piece I am writing for here, but someone I know may want to run it elsewhere, just some background and a different angle from some statements made to date on the sport.

With regards the private teams, it simply is not like F1. The factory teams are always investing in ways to make the car faster and their pockets are deeper than the privateers. Also none of the factory squads will ever want to be beaten by a customer team, hence why the factory cars always seem just a hair's breadth faster! When on paper it should be exactly the same machine.

With regards my involvement now, currently being discussed I have just started my own business so that is taking most of my time right now, but depending on what happens in the new year, I may be either competing again - possibly BRC, heading back to the US to possibly compete in US Rally or GT Racing which is actually my most favoured plan right now. But having done my broadcast bit for the WRC for a few years back in the first half of this decade there is part of me that would like to get back into the broadcast side of things, so we will see. Shillings in the pocket first....playing with cars second!

Anyone knows if next year the running order stays the same, or are they inverting it to prevent sandbagging? (quickest cars go last)

Sandbagging ruined a large part of this season...

As far as I know it'll remain the same But the day points are introduced to prevent sand-bagging. Which is, in my opinion, a most typical FIA solution - instead of just returning to good old ways that actually worked, let's just hope some new random rule changes will fix it...

I'm not sure, though. I think I'm going to check the new sport reg.

EDIT

Interesting. The rule change proposals were apparently rejected. The points will remain 10-8-6-4-3-2-1 with no day points, and super rally rule will remain. Starting order will also be based on WRC standings (1st day) and rally provisional classification (rest of the rally).

Well done sir, I was just about to post the exact same thing.

Are we going to have more manufacturers any sooner? Just two manufacturers means means only two drivers can fight for the title, and they both have a junior team, and that means only 4 teams actually compete in WRC. How did it even come to this? How can a driver like Petter Solberg not have a care to challenge for titles? I think this is a severe handicap for WRC. As much as I am excited about rally, I am also shocked and stunned by some of the things.

This may be a bit of a daft question as I haven't watched rallying before, but is there a reason why Kimi will not be participating in the New Zealand round of the WRC? is it normal for teams to opt out of one or more stages?

Kimi must have some other commitment.

Surely the Red Bull backing covers the costs of a C4 for the complete championship?

Perhaps only 1 driver from Citroen Jr (Kimi) has selected NZ round, and it is not economic to transport the team there unless at least 2 drivers race?

(M2 teams only have to do a least X % of the rounds to get their M2 status, but not all, not sure how many.)

Citroen said that the Junior team will skip the NZ round altogether... This year from the Junior drivers Conrad Rautenbach and Sebastien Ogier did the whole season... so I don't know the reason why Kimi couldn't do NZ as well... and why Ogier can't do the whole season if he did this year.

It has nothing to do with Kimi

The team doesn't want to go there, and I think a good guess as to why is because it's between Rally Turkey and Rally Portugal. Want to travel that far for just one rally...? Why not have for example Rally Japan lumped together with Rally New Zealand in the calendar - perhaps the team would want to go to both in that case!

My memory tells me this same team (or some of the top teams) has done the same thing before as well so it would not be anything new that some of the teams skip a rally far, far away

wouldnt surprise me if the bigger teams have multiple cars and lorries etc so they alternate events

The Junior team not to travel to New Zealand must be about money. Like Anssi said it takes place between two european rallies and its expensive enough to take two cars there .

Citroen hasn´t been taking there junior team there, unlike Ford´s Stobart Team.

If there has been more than two Citroens, they have been private teams.

That is how I understand it.

Of course, if Mr. Räikkönen is amazing at the beginning of the year and we drink Red Bull enough, who knows..?

yes

He will be involved in motorsports for a long long time, for a longer age than any of the current drivers you can think of.

You may be right, - but even if you're wrong, for most observers, it will still feel like you're right.

They've said it is purely commercial, but Ogier said if he's doing well in the championship when they finish Turkey they may well end up going. I don't think Kimi plays much part in it.

Ogier doing good and Kimi being commercial success for WRC series
might together change decision to not go to NZ with junior team.

For a junior team like Junior Citroen - yes.
The whole team announced they won't be in NZ, but recently they said they will go there.