Watched for the first time in ages. God its dull and slow these days. It seems they’ve also been cursed with stupid tyre rules.

Saw it was on. Got excited.

Watched five minutes and then turned off. Duller than dull coverage.

What channel was it on?

Exactly the same CFH, the old man messaged me to say it was on, I promptly hit the record button and tuned in 40 mins later. I lasted 5 mins also!
It was on itv4.

This is interesting, I’m a big rally fan, that’s my main hobby, the sport (at WRC level) has been in decline for a number of years, lack of sponsors, was down to 2 works teams, poor media coverage, very few paid drives etc. Plus Monsieur Loeb, who dominated the sport for 9/10 years.

But last year saw RBMH (Red Bull) take over the media side of things, and we now have 4 works teams, Ford (which is actually semi-works run by M-Sport of Cockermouth), Citroen, VW & Hyundai.

So, things should be rapidly improving, but change seems painfully slow.

I always go to Rally GB, but rarely watch TV coverage of the WRC, I followed the Monte Carlo online as it progressed, so already knew the results, which may have taken the edge off the TV coverage for me, but I felt it was poor none the less, they failed to portray any atmosphere or excitement.

The speed was probably down to the conditions on the Monte this year, it was really treacherous and I think a lot played it safe to just get round in one piece. On other rounds, and in suitable conditions the pace is blistering, the current cars (1.6 turbo) are faster than anything previous, but they are so good that they don’t get out of shape as much as in years gone by.

I had some friends who went to Monte to watch, I commented to my girlfriend that I probably wouldn’t go as it looked so slow.

Coverage this year is on Motors TV, ITV4 & BT Sport.

There is potential for the WRC to grow and improve hugely with these new manufacturers, good young drivers coming through, and well known names, such as Robert Kubica taking part. We now also have 2 Brits with full time drives, in the form of Northern Irishman Kris Meeke (Colin McRae’s Protege), and Welshman Elfyn Evans (son of former British Champion Gwyndaf).

it was really dull. i left it on to have something in the background while i was doing some work but i hardly looked up to be honest.

i said to my wife last year how dull the coverage was. they never do anything about the cars/teams/testing or anything like that and because they are timed runs rather than a massive free for all it must be really difficult to make it interesting. the commentators on itv4 don’t really help.

rallying is probably my favourite motorsport but the tv coverage is just dreadful.

Like BTCC I switched off years ago 🙁

If Vettel dominates F1 next year It’ll be the same with F1 too.

I quite enjoy btcc. I went off it for quite a while but recently started watching it again and quite enjoy it. Wouldn’t go out of my way to watch it though.

4 works teams, Ford (which is actually semi-works run by M-Sport of Cockermouth), Citroen, VW & Hyundai

I used to be a big fan back in the 90s but drifted away. Have Subaru, Mitsubishi, Toyota all gone as manufacturer teams?

Evans did well.
Showing his dad how it should be done.
He’s definitely one to look out for in the future.

I was born and bred rallying. From age 4 stood in kielder and clocaenog to 18/19 with the lads doing the old special stages at chatsworth etc. Think it was three years ago we happened upon a stage of the Scottish championships near Wigtown?. The memories came flooding back especially when some classics like the 6r4 made their presence known a good mile away 😀
Last night it was dull.
Vatanen used to nail it rain snow or blow 8)

What killed it? It was epic back when it was McRae, Makkinen, Burns, Sainz etc.

Is there a lack of personalities these days?

One of the dudes I briefly saw last night looked like he’d just stepped of stage with one direction not out of a rally car 😯

Yeah, Subaru departed around 2008, Mitsubishi 2005 I think, Toyota a bit before them.

They all competed in the 90’s in Group A, the Burns/McRae/Makinen era, when they were essentially highly modified road going cars.

These days the cars are more akin to F1 in terms of the technology, than their road going cousins, plus none of the cars currently being used are available as 4wd on the road. The Prodrive (they ran the Subaru team) Mini team was promising, but BMW pulled the funding after 1 partial season, which was a shame, as the car was good, and although butt ugly (countryman based), had a road going version with 4WD and the same size turbo engine.

I think it’s difficult to portray WRC well on TV as it’s a point to point timed competition, not racing. The coverage & commentators can help a lot, but John Desborough is crap. They need to make more of the endurance, environmental and extreme elements of rallying in my opinion, as it surely is the most difficult motorsport to master, just look how F1 drivers have struggled/are struggling.

didn’t look too bad from last year?

There’s no question its still an exciting sport in my opinion but the tv coverage is dreadful.

Nah, me too I spotted it was on but I lost faith in it when Sainz and Loeb left.
Weren’t they constrained by a lot of RUles that were intended to make it more exciting but safer? Same old as far as I’m concerned.

It lost it’s edge when they made a lotto the stages t.v. friendly a few years ago, lost the sense of it being a massive journey. The day’s of monster 60k night stages are long gone.

Last night’s coverage was the first I’d seen in a few years and didn’t make me want to look for when the next rally is on tbh.

Agree the coverage was really poor. The ‘epic’ and ‘Historical’ Col de Turini stage was shown to be nothing more than a couple of tight corners with the cars going what looked like less than 20mph in deep snow, taken up with far to many slo-mo replays.

Thought the commentator didn’t sound interested either. Still rather watch it than Formula 1 though

Have to agree, they made ‘The Col’ look like your average night in a ski resort.

The slow motion was painful.

What I would say to anyone with an interest, who lives in or near Wales, think about going to Rally GB this year, the spectacle is as good as ever up close, the commitment and speed of the top guys is astonishing. http://www.walesrallygb.com/home.php

I might be off to Finland this year to watch, now that will be impressive.

It was typical ITV4 coverage – i.e. crap.

The commentator was intensely annoying and was clearly trying to talk up the limited footage he was working with.

I can’t really understand why it was not 95% onboard camera with a few exterior shots and no bullshit in the middle.

To be fair to ITV, they get given the footage, Red Bull (or whoever they employ) do the camera work and the TV broadcasters just get what they are given and have to make the most of it.

The in-car shots they did use were poor though, and the exterior shots were very repetitive, the slo-mo was just too much.

Thats a shame. I used to love rallying too but haven’t followed the TV coverage for a while now, not since it left Channel 4.

Its a bit like BTCC really, once the big manufacturers leave you loose some of the diversity and the narrow field takes away some of the enjoyment.

BTCC used to be amazing in the 90’s with Nissan, Vauxhall, Renault, Volvo, Ford, Peugeot etc etc. I recall the Primera bossing the field for a while before Menu was flinging that Laguana around & the 850 estates were just hilarous!

The welsh tv show “Ralio” has really good coverage so learn Welsh before the Swedish rally and you will enjoy the rest of the world series.