It shouldn't be about the car, correct me if I'm wrong but the FIA has more or less frozen development on the current WRCars.

Also Wilson said this on WRC.com:



Considering that Wilson mentioned he had all those exciting updates on the Focus that would bring it closer to the C4 on asphalt, maybe after all he couldn't bring them because of the homologation restrictions...

Also there have been comments (from Citroen and Ford people) that the high altitude favoured the C4 although I cannot explain why, maybe FOC can enlighten us on this...

I believe that Citroen has had an engine advantage for some years already so it doesn't matter if they froze it for this year or not, they had it before and they would still have it. In my opinion Loeb has kept speed in reserve many many times, he is a master at this - he has not exploited the full speed of the car often. It's a smart thing to do, because the competitors can be at a loss as to how he can go even faster all of a sudden - well, he could always do that, but he didn't, to have something in reserve if there is a really tight place.

In fact, now that he has Ogier at Citroen really pushing him, he has said this year that he has had to push a lot. And now the Fords are losing badly! See what's going on? Previously Loeb didn't have such a really good guy competing with him at Citroen, but now he has, and he has to take more out of the car, and then the Fords are losing badly. I think this is what Loeb in fact referred to in some interview.

I don't completely agree that Seb has not "exploited the full speed of the car often". The few times this year he happened to be around 3rd-4th after a few stages were either due to road position, him having an off...

Also I remember back in 2007 when there was some analysis why Marcus sometimes lost out to Seb despite going flat out. Seb happens to have a pretty particular braking technique which often proved to be a lot faster than Gronholm's.

About Ogier, well he's been pushing Loeb hard but Citroen won't let him get in Loeb's way in the championship, and I think that the fact they promoted Ogier into the works team for the gravel events is not only in order to secure the manufacturers' championship but also to be able to control the situation a little bit better. So all this is more and more a Citroen cup unless Ford manages to sign a good lead driver who can push Loeb as well. And if Ford doesn't manage to do that then the championship will become even more boring. Actually, Loeb said that if Ogier went to Ford it would actually be good for the WRC because if he's paired with Ogier at Citroen next year, then a) it could create conflicts within the team and b) if the two of them dominate the championship Ford could pull out of the WRC and as a result, Citroen as well.

Then again being Loeb's teammate seems to be a bit of a curse: Duval, Pons, actually Sordo has been staying for quite a long time now.

Loeb said so himself that he has had to push harder this year. That suggests (especially if the development of the car is frozen!) that previously he wasn't using all of what the car could offer.

Hello.... Mr Wilson?....Er yes... your son's time is up.... he has had his chance, he has proven that while a nice guy, he simply does not have the speed to compete at the sharp end of the WRC.....therefore give the car to Gigi Galli, Duval, Atkinson, or any of another half dozen drivers that could all go significantly quicker that young Matt, his performances have simply become embarassing.
Many Thanks.

unfortunately that's not going to happen for a couple of years, so long as he's at the helm of M-Sport. I'm sure Matty is part of some subsidised agreement and thus is plonked in the Stobart team.

Anything less than a WRC rally car and Matt's career is finished. Others can jump in and out because they do not have the funding etc, but obviously Matthew is a different case.

Who knows, Matthew might actually perform better with the new WRC next year!



Here's to being the eternal optimist! lol

Loriaux would disagree

The engine spec for WRC has been frozen for a very long time - right back to GpA days, IIRC - to a two litre production-based turbo engine with a 34mm restrictor. Surely there is no scope for anyone to have an engine advantage of any significance after all those years of development?

Some footage from Rally Bulgaria
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GluCCi1OBIA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upueE9uE8U4

Agreed, but they can develop how the power is mapped, fuel used, etc etc. So some minor tweaks can be achieved. It is quite clear the C4's engine seems to have more grunt this year as compared to last year's as it really is leaving the Focus for dead in a straight line this year.

The words of a worried man!

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/85277

Seb Loeb has become all to aware of just how stale the WRC is becoming, so much so, that he is even almost desperately telling Seb Ogier that he should go to Ford next year, just so that Loeb feels he has someone of equal capability in an opposing car. This interview is quite staggering and pretty much highlights how Loeb does not think either of the Ford main factory drivers are up to the task of competing with him and thus if someone like Ogier does not join Ford then 2011 coud be even more of a disaster than this year has already been for the championship.

I applaud Loeb for his honesty, I dont think he means this in an arrogant way, but it does clearly highlight the concerns that he has with regards to winning world titles 'providing' he has to battle someone to win them, otherwise they are pretty meaningless. It also highlights possibly concern for the young countryman, where he might feel that Ogier might have to defer to Loeb if he remains in the same team. Clearly Citroen do not want to let go of Ogier and rightly so, a pairing of Loeb and Ogier will pretty much wrap the manufacturers title with little effort next year.

Therefore Ford will possibly need to consider paying Ogier a handsome fee to join them at which point, politics in the Ford camp would probably make life a little awkward for the existing drivers.

Possible line up's for next year:

Ford: Ogier, Hirvonen, Latvala.
Citroen: Loeb, Sordo, Raikkonen.

Ford Stobart: Wilson, Block, Andersson
Citroen Junior: Neuville, ???
Solberg WRC team: P. Solberg, maybe H. Solberg.

Or better still................

Scrap the current proposed championship for next year. Make the IRC the World Championship and equal the engine outputs, so that drivers can either drive a 350bhp 2.0L normally aspirated engine S2000 car, OR drive a WR16T car with 1600cc Turbo engine, again limited to 350bhp. Take the best events of both championships and merge them to form one championship of:

Monte Carlo Rally (Tarmac/ice)
Rally Norway (Snow)
Rally Sweden (Snow)
Rally Mexico (Gravel)
Rally Argentina (Gravel)
Rally New Zealand (Gravel)
Rally Australia (Gravel)
Rally Belgium (Tarmac)
Rally Germany (Tarmac)
Rally Bulgaria (Tarmac)
Rally Finland (Gravel)
Rally Portugal (Gravel)
Rally Greece (Gravel)
Rally Spain (Tarmac)
Rally Italy (Tarmac)
Rally Corsica (Tarmac)
Rally GB (Mixed)

That's a 16 round championship where teams could drop 4 events other than the 8 mandatory events highlighted in bold.

I would also get rid of the J-WRC and S-WRC and purely have P-WRC as the supporting series for the main championship.

But hey ho, we can but dream of such simple solutions to the current problem.

I agree, but also if Ogier moves to Ford it is better for Loeb too, he gets to keep his (well deserved) status as Citroen's lead driver without any problems, as he said a driver pairing Loeb/Ogier could be difficult to handle, not only because Ogier is capable of challenging Loeb but also because Loeb is not likely to drivefor another 10 years and Ogier is the perfect successor. So in some way it will also test Citroen to decide what is more important, to guide Loeb to his Xth title and have Ogier "learning" from the master as support driver, or to have them both fight for the drivers championship and let Ogier show whether he can beat Loeb to the title.

For me the move isn't that unlikely even though it really requires some imagination to see a French driver, supported by FFSA, PSA and what not, leave a French manufacturer to join Ford, and that with the gamble that the Fiesta WRC will be a car at least equal to the DS3 WRC. And the reason I think it's possible is because no one has any idea how long Loeb still wants to stay, he could definitely do another 5 years at the top level but it's much more a question whether he really wants to. So for Ogier who definitely wants to win more rallies and chase the world championship, he might have to play second fiddle for more than 1 or 2 years until he really gets a shot at the title and I see why he might not like that a lot. So since his options are limited he checks on his options at Ford.

On the other hand, I remember Loeb not being so crazy about the new World Rally Cars when they were supposed to be "S2000 plus" but apparently he's changed his mind now. But assume Loeb retires at the end of 2011, Citroen might not have any driver capable of taking the leader role to fight against the trio of Hirvonen, Latvala and Ogier, that puts them in a pretty bad situation unless Sordo makes a big step next year or Petter is willing to jump in.

Then there is what Loeb mentioned about Ford possibly quitting if Citroen dominates the championship next year with him and Ogier as factory drivers. So all in all it's not simple for Ogier and Citroen. Ford in fact can only win in this. Either they win a great driver for their factory team or Citroen has to give both their drivers equal status and Ford has better (drivers) championship chances than if Ogier would just be support driver.

The biggest question on the drivers' market for me remains though: what will happen with Petter Solberg? I get the impression he either wants a works drive or he wants to remain an independent entrant; but in the second case there is the problem with the shortage of WRCars and in this situation, as a manufacturer, would you really give a car to an independent entrant who could (and in Solberg's case, probably will) take off points your factory driver(s) in the drivers' championship and who you can't control when it comes to team tactics?

Honestly I'm stunned that the FIA hasn't done anything (or not enough) about the current situation, we're at the midpoint of the season and next year is still very fragile. You can forget about new manufacturers at least before the middle of next season as no Prodrive-Mini or whatever was rumoured to come has been tested until now so you have your two manufacturers, according to their own statements able to supply about 4 cars each, for another 6 months and who can be sure if somebody will come after that... haven't we been promised that 2011 was going to be the start of a new era of the WRC? Well, you're off to a great start.

About the calendar it's an interesting idea but the FIA reportedly has plans to bring back longer events (about 7 days) and have about 10 events each season. But I like your idea although I would replace Bulgaria with Poland.

Since you've thrown in the idea of allowing both engine formats with equal engine outputs, wouldn't it be possible to allow almost any engine as long as the output is equal to the others? I'm thinking that would be good in terms of manufacturer interest since they can basically choose whatever engine they feel more comfortable with...

I cant see why they cant all drive 600bhp ''monsters'' like Ken Blocks American championship Fiesta - rallycross cars with 2 seats basically
Throw the front driveshafts in the bin too while they're at it!
Make rallying proper fun to watch again!

A ver, a ver, Ogier: difficult to say, if Loeb stays next season (it looks so), I think he will go to Ford. He wants to win, no matter what, and he knows Citroën won’t let him.

As for Rally Bulgaria: Citroën and Ford are lobbing to get rid of it:
http://www.maxrally.com/news/entry/bulgari...eturn_unlikely/

Honestly I'm wondering how Bulgaria managed to get in the calendar in the first place. Where did they get all the money?

About the event itself - I'll wait until I see some more of it (until now seen probably 1 or 2 onboards from the internet and we get images from the WRC with a delay of 1 or 2 weeks) before making judgements but I see how Bulgaria isn't exactly the greatest place to host a WRC event, then again there were quite a few local entrants on the event so there's definitely a possibility to do something for rallying in the region.

I'm once again a little bit baffled by Olivier Quesnel's statement about those "other countries" the WRC should go to in order to help itself - what are those "other countries"? The only (new) place that has been mentioned in the last months was Abu Dhabi, which besides putting a lot of money in certain people's pockets isn't going to do anything good to the state of the WRC... so Monsieur Quesnel, enlighten us!

Turini - I agree with you. We were told 2011 would be a new start for the WRC.......hmmmm.....

At the moment, all we have are 2 Manufacturers, AGAIN Ford/ Citroen......, still nothing positive from BMW-Mini, yet!! Just where are the rest of the supposed interested Manufacturers?? Six months left......did anybody expect anything else?
Simple really, Manufacturers aren't interested in the current WRC - the cars are still too expensive, and still too similar to the current WRCars. Add in the simply awful media coverage, not helped by clashes with F1, and who could blame others from not joining.
What we need are 5,6 Manufacturers with 3,4 cars each, add in affordable Privateers cars, and you could have a decent series. Wishful thinking, I know.
all this talk of a bright new dawn is just laughable - add in the start in Sweden, instead of Monte, and it just has the feel of a 'small time' series.

Speaking of costs - I'm not a regular Twitter reader, however I picked one up from Gerard Quinn which said that the FIA plans some "interesting changes" for 2012 but the costs are still going to increase.

No comment.

It's obvious you wasn't around when the late great Henri Toivonen perished in a monster rally car.No thanks. Rallycross is different to rallies mate.

Costs increasing - marvellous, that'll attract new Manufacturers........

Don't you know why Subaru, Mitsubishi, Peugeot, Skoda etc. all pulled out of the WRC?

It was too cheap, that's why!

Interesting "entry" for Rallye Deutschland - Carlos Sainz will drive a natural gas powered VW Scirocco as zero car...

http://www.rallye-magazin.de/top/topnews/d...occo/index.html (in German)

Who really is to blame for the ever spiraling costs? If not the manufactures in a quest to be the top dog?

Ooooooooooooooh! cool! I would have loved to see him in Rally Finland, instead, head to head with the great Juha. My two childhood heroes in the same rally would have been wonderful

Everybody who could have avoided it is responsible, manufacturers, ISC, FIA, ...

I see how manufacturers are willing to spend a lot of money to win, but you should act in the interests of the competition too, at least to a certain degree. Having a mega operation like Citroen is definitely not in the interest of anybody with the exception of Citroen. I don't know how much Ford is throwing out of the window every season, I have heard a lot less, then again they seem to be able to afford to give Wilson a drive (and I suspect he doesn't have to pay)

ISC is supposed to promote the sport and I fail to see how you can promote a sport which manufacturers, competitors, spectators have been constantly walking away from.

And the FIA, they have simply done nothing or they have done it wrong, even now under Todt's regime I don't see them going in a clear direction. Every now and then you hear something interesting but the desperately needed master plan hasn't been presented yet. And it's not like the WRC can go on like this for long. Two years having this non-competition is already asking a lot. The WRC might not survive another year of this. Be it with a WRCar or a S1600T car or whatever. A championship with two manufacturers and one, MAYBE two possibly interested in joining doesn't excite any Rally fan.

The IRC is actually only picking up the pieces and still they manage to force the FIA's hands... unbelievable. Lotti might not try hard to make his championship number 1, but I'm sure if the people are knocking on his door he won't say no to them. So the FIA should find a solution quick and not this half-hearted crap they have been giving us for months now.

Modern road cars are safer than group b cars.......
I'm pretty sure they could build a safe one now....

Sure modern cars are indeed a lot safer now than they were back then.I however doubt very much the outcome of Henri Toivonen/Sergio Crestos accident would of been any different were it in a modern car with 700 odd horse power. We are talking remote mountain roads with no margins for error here.No fire marshals to come rescue you should the unthinkable happen.Im sorry but silly horse power figures plain scare me in cars that have to thread through trees,kiss frightening ravines not to mention throngs of death defying spectators.

What throngs of death defying spectators? Yes, in Portugal in 1982, but not today. Stages are often cancelled nowadays if there are too many spectators.

Kronos apparently planning to enter Rallye Deutschland and Rallye d'Alsace with a Peugeot 207 S2000... driver unknown...

Also Duval has been confirmed for Germany but at the wheel of a Stobart Focus... I have been wondering why he didn't rent Petter's spare Xsara, I would have guessed it was cheaper and I guess on asphalt the Xsara isn't that far off the Focus, I thought it might even be equally fast. Happy if I'm proven wrong though!

We won’t be lucky and see him driving Matt’s car, will we?

Sorry to disappoint you.



But honestly Malcolm is throwing away his chances in the manufacturers' championship. I'm certain Duval would have done better in the works car than Hirvonen and Latvala.

At least he will get some testing and I think a top 5 finish is possible, maybe pick up some stage wins too.

I know I’m a little too mean with the boy, I usually loooove all drivers, but he was so off the pace in Bulgaria that I don’t think that’s fair.

About Duval. I don’t know if he’s fit at the moment, but I suppose his times will help to clarify if Ford’s problems are due to the car or the drivers.

Malcolm Wilson on Rally Radio: "We're waiting for the announcement of a new manufacturer joining the WRC"

Are they expecting one or hoping for one?

Its suicidal for a new manufacture to join the fray as it stands IMO. It would be akin to standing in a shower ripping up 50 quid notes. What would be the point someone like say Honda or Nissan entering the fray knowing full well they will get their backsides kicked big time by Citroen and Ford ..teams that can recite what is what in this game backwards?

Point granted.

What's your take of 700 horse power modern day rally machines then?

Bear in mind that the current WRC cars with their FIA mandated "300bhp" (but we all know they are more like 350bhp) are already significantly faster per stage km than the Group B cars that were outlawed on safety grounds in 1986. Pure engine power is not always the whole answer in rallying. 700bhp would just spin the wheels more, especially on gravel.

IMO, the Group B idea was probably going to implode anyway, even if it had not been exposed as horribly dangerous, simply on spiralling cost grounds. A cheaper option, more related to production models, would have had to be devised if the WRC was to survive (so no change there then!). The loss of poor Henri and Sergio just brought that decision forward and ushered in the Group A age, which in many ways was a golden era.

I am all in favour of spectacular rally cars, but that means RWD for me. And putting 700bhp just through the back wheels is even more impractical.

According to Autosport Mini will announce their entry in WRC already this week:


http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/85369

About ****ing time.

About time, took them long enough. I just hope a few more decide to join them.I hope they'll also use a British driver.

I think I'm stuck in a time loop!

In all seriousness, good news for rallying if it's true and they announce it soon, but it annoys me that ISC is even getting a reward for their crappy work.

So after all the agitation, Ogier finally stays at Citroen, for three more years.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/85387

Good for Citroen, bad for the WRC?

Both Sebs stay. Interesting.

Pitty for Sordo (sorry, I got to get a little bit nationalist here)

Why is it a pity?

Apparently Citroen is planning on giving him a third works car.

I guess Citroen and Ford are pushing for 3 car M1-teams, otherwise all these comments about Ogier getting a third factory car and now about Sordo, don't make sense.

Last rumours I heard is that the FIA doesn’t want to let 3-cars teams next season (just rumours). That means Sordo to the Junior team. I know it could be worse, but he is still demoted.

Yeah,definitely it could be worse, he could stand there without a drive next season.

What about Meeke?

Meeke will only go to a factory team, otherwise he'll stay where he is at the moment. That's what he said on TR last Wednesday at least.

He was rumoured among others for the Mini seat, but then the list of possible Prodrive drivers is pretty long.

Thanks, didn’t know that.

NICE, 2 Frenchies running for the top Citroen team

Why on earth would they do that? I don't want F1 to have 3-car teams because that would lead to less teams and more team orders, but when your championship already has only 2 manufacturers, certainly you'd try to maximise the number of proper entries for those 2?

Perhaps they don't want to scare off potential new entrants that wouldn't have the budget for 3 cars? Well, have only the top 2 cars for each team score points then.

Or just make it a real Manufacturers' championship and not this M1/M2 silliness.

That way you will have just Citroen and Ford, but let's be honest, who the hell cares about whether the Citroen Junior Team finishes in 3rd or 5th place?

Yesterday I managed to get eyes on a certain Mini-Countryman!!

I can say now....it is one mean looking SOB! I still dont agree with the direction the WRC has gone...but at least this car does not look like every other hatchback!! Will be interesting to see how it goes.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/85407

Oh dear.......

This is the dumbest idea yet......