WRC 2017 (contains massive spoilers!)

I must admit I’d lost interest in rallying over recent years. Being brought up on Group B, the modern cars just seemed rather tame. And Loeb’s dominance didn’t help either.

Well the new 2017 regs designed to make things more spectacular may get me interested again.

Some pretty extreme aero!…

I too lost heart in WRC, stupid little engine shopping cars wheezing around gravel tracks… booooooorrrrrrrrriiiiiinnnng.

But, these changes mooted to 2017 go some way to rekindle the spark.

What lost me more was the lack of TV coverage. You could rely on at least a handful of programs dedicated to the WRC, but now all you get is a 1/2 hr program on ITV4 which contains a 30s clip of the start, 3mins of adverts, a 42s clip of inside footage, 5mins of adverts, some arse commentators review or preview of the next stage which you see 11s clip of then another 7mins of adverts, then that same commentator prattling on about the next set of rounds in the calendar, which incidentally are never shown on TV.

It’s the same shite with MotoGP. What once was the pinnacle of excitement turned into a 56s clip shot Programme around 43mins of adverts.

It’s all about the money, not the fans.

What are the 2017 regs, for those of us that lost interest some time ago?

I was fairly into WRC, but like bikebouy said, the coverage has been dire over the past couple of years. I enjoyed it when the switch down from 2.0l to 1.6l came in, it opened things up to a few more manufacturers briefly, but last time I managed to catch any it had gone back to 2 main teams and 1 person dominating, which got old quickly…

I agree about the current WRC TV coverage, but rallying has always been hard to cover on TV. There’s none of the side by side racing on other types of motor sport, and the casual viewer will always fail to understand it’s all against the clock.
(But great drone footage!)

What lost me more was the lack of TV coverage. You could rely on at least a handful of programs dedicated to the WRC, but now all you get is a 1/2 hr program on ITV4 which contains a 30s clip of the start, 3mins of adverts, a 42s clip of inside footage, 5mins of adverts, some arse commentators review or preview of the next stage which you see 11s clip of then another 7mins of adverts, then that same commentator prattling on about the next set of rounds in the calendar, which incidentally are never shown on TV.

There’s been an hour long show on Channel 5 for ever rally this year, it’s the same show that has been on Red Bull TV (which I’ll agree was hard to access) previously.

I thought this year was pretty good, six different winners in the first half of the year and some great wins by Kris Meeke.

Definitely excited for 2017, the cars look nuts. I can’t believe all that body work will survive intact though! It’ll be great to have Citroen back as well as Toyota. It’d be even better if someone buys the Polos and then there’ll be five manufacturers represented at every rally.

So this years and previous several years regulations for cars have been:

1600cc turbocharged 4 cylinder engines, 4wd, sequential gearboxes, had been on stick, last 2 years back on paddles, fairly limited aero over road car silhouette. Approx 300bhp.

For 2017, an extra 80bhp or so (I don’t think they were ever actually 300bhp anyway, surely more) by way of a bigger turbo restrictor. A fair chunk more torque, more fancy diffs, lots more aero, wider and longer cars permitted in wheelbase/track and body.

Should be more exciting, I’ve seen three of them test in person, VW (who now won’t be competing), Citroen and M Sport (Ford). The cars certainly seem to slide and oversteer more, all on gravel. Though on tar I think the aero will make them stick to the road like they’re on rails. I think they’ve missed a trick by allowing so much aero really, less grip than power is what makes the spectacle.

So, VW have pulled out for 2017, but Toyota are coming in, so we will have:

Citroen C3 (proper works team)
Hyundai i20 (proper works team)
Ford Fiesta (M Sport – Cumbria, with a little bit of Ford money and help)
Toyota Yaris (Tommi Makinen Racing for Toyota)

VW pulling out has screwed up the driver market somewhat, but it’s arguably done the sport a favour, lots of drivers moved around and in new cars.

Kris Meeke (the man from Dungannon) in the Citroen C3, Elfyn Evans (Gwyndaf’s boy) in a 2016 Fiesta in the WRC cup class.

4 times and reigning World Champion Sebastien Ogier in the M Sport Fiesta, that’s hell of a deal for them. Saw him test the Fiesta a few weeks ago, he was instantly rapid and looked visibly faster than his team mate Ott Tanak, who has been in the car a lot, it was Ogier’s first time.

Edited to say: Aero and bodywork will not survive on gravel, been to the above tests and on every run (sub 5 miles generally) cars have ripped bits off left right and centre. M Sport had a huge pile of bumpers and splitters from 2 days testing, there were 2 mechanics nearly constantly trying to patch them back together all day when I was there.

I’ll post some pictures later, can’t connect to instagram on work laptop and no 3g signal………

So it’ll continue to be Ford vs Citroen, with no-one else getting a look in. Yawn.

I still enjoy WRC, it is way better than other sports IMO. However the coverage the last few years has been poor.
I’ve watched a few of the Scandi RallyCross rounds online – now that *is* exciting and spectator friendly. Someone tell me again why it isn’t popular here?

The new cars to sound like it may take excitement up a level.

Aero and bodywork will not survive on gravel, been to the above tests and on every run (sub 5 miles generally) cars have ripped bits off left right and centre.

I wonder if the pragmatic may run a few different bodyworks this year – of have bits that can ‘fall off’ without changing the fundamentals or causing a problem. On tarmac it stays on, on gravel ‘meh’

And 11mins of coverage on TV at 00.30.

And 11mins of coverage on TV at 00.30.

Where have you been seeing that? It’s on the Monday or Tuesday after the rally for an hour at 7pm.

Good to see Elfyn back in the WRC. I hope Mads Ostberg finds a team. And I’d really like to see Ott Tanak win a rally this year.

The Citroen seems to have far less fins and small pieces than the others, do we reckon this will be an advantage or not?

So it’ll continue to be Ford vs Citroen, with no-one else getting a look in. Yawn.

Huh? Not a single Citroen or Ford in the top 6 overall this year.

What lost me more was the lack of TV coverage

What? I watched hours of it including many live stages on BT sport.

Look like it’s on Red Bull TV as well for 2017…

http://www.crash.net/wrc/news/235606/1/wrc-signs-broadcast-deal-with-red-bull.html

I’d take an interest if the cars represented the future rather than the past:

Cars fitted with a 500cc normally aspirated hydrogen engine with a 6000rpm limiter, and 75kg of batteries of any type so long as they don’t contain lithium or cadmium. Two driven wheels, two electric motors, no direct link between the petrol engine and the drive train.

Edited to say: Aero and bodywork will not survive on gravel, been to the above tests and on every run (sub 5 miles generally) cars have ripped bits off left right and centre

My first thought when aero was announced was that’s not going to last 2 mins on gravel events 😆

I did some work on the 2015 fiesta so it’s good to see M sport with a driver that’s capable of regularly winning rallys now. Done a few bits for the Hyundai too, the sport is definitely better now there is some more bigger manufacturers back so it’s a shame to see VW go.

I hadn’t followed it for the last ten or so years, but have watched the last few Red Bull TV programs and really enjoyed it, i’ll try and catch a few more of them next year.

In a way, I’m glad VW have gone, they’ve dominated for the last 4 years, won both the drivers and manufacturers championship consecutively since they started. At least them going will hopefully shake things up a bit. With drivers moving around that will add to it.

Fun stat (I think) – Nobody other than Sebastien Ogier has lead Wales Rally GB (what everyone still calls the RAC) since 2012. He’s lead from start to finish for the last 4 years!

It hasn’t been Ford v Citroen for a good few years, and I’m expecting the Hyundai to be right in the running, this years car has won rallies.

From what I’ve heard a lot of people think it’s a missed opportunity to have brought in a new generation of cars and not gone down some hybrid/electric route. They were slightly ahead of the curve with the switch from 2000cc engines to 1600cc with the last set of regs, but things have moved on again. I don’t feasibly think they can go much smaller in terms of combustion engine capacity within the restraints of the hybrid technology available right now without deminishing the performance, but it is something they are going to have to do. WRC has probably given the automotive industry as many technological advances as F1, but they take all the credit.

Car looks better, but in rallying do we really want more aero? The cars already slide a lot less than they used to, and it’s sliding and lots of turbo noises that makes rallying good !

I too lost heart in WRC, stupid little engine shopping cars wheezing around gravel tracks… booooooorrrrrrrrriiiiiinnnng.

Not the WRC I’ve been watching…

Photo’s of 2017 cars, all in camouflage liveries.

Ignore the mountune rip off watermark my mate did as a joke please….. Basically we call each other mon, and as a laugh gave ourselves the name montune for our diy rally prep ‘outfit’, it stuck……

C3

Polo (maybe never to be seen in anger)

Fiesta

contains massive spoilers

LOL,I see what you did there…

Nice pics and info core… Your obviously a big fan.

Just because…

I remember tuning into ITV’s World Of Sport on a Saturday afternoon to watch rallying in this era. Showing my age, I guess…

I should have said internal combustion engine not “petrol” above.

Current rally cars epitomise all that is anti-social about the current generation of cars: noisy, smelly, polluting, aggressive looking, inefficient, far faster than they need to be. Some of those need to change if rallying is going to attract more than a few petrol heads to brands. A standard 60s Cooper S was faster than the rally car because it weighed a lot less. Today’s rally cars are too far removed from the road car to be taken seriously and all this aero stuff makes that worse.

It’s part of the “us and them” modern world, inaccessible rich-persons’ play things. Drive your Seat Ibiza to a stage to watch bizarre projectiles flay past. It’s a sport of the past that lost its relevance some time around Group B – a move to zero emissions is the only thing that would make me curious again.

LOL,I see what you did there…

Credit to Pook for that (nicked from the F1 thread title).

So Monte Carlo this weekend – where is the best place to watch highlights? I don’t have BT Sport.

Cheers

I know Red Bull TV are covering every round, but I’m not get my expectations up after the Dakar coverage

😯 Just watching live Monty, Hayden Paddon crash and the spectator falling down the bank hope they are ok.

This should be a great season.

It’s fantastic that we’ve got Ogier this season (I work at M-Sport), but with new cars all round and a lot of drivers gaining experience it could go to anyone.

🙁 RIP

😥

That’s sad news. Just watched the video, pretty routine crash by WRC standards, spectator just in an unlucky spot.

About 8:25 in video.

🙁 I can’t quite work out what’s actually happened. Looks like the fell down the bank, but the statement says they were hit by the right-rear of the car. Didn’t seem hard enough to have thrown them up the banking. Shit news either way.

On the bumper cam you can see the spectator on the outside corner, look for the shadow a the hi-vis. He/she gets hit with the rear ¼ and pushed up the embankment.

I think the spectator was up on the bank and the car bounced up high enough to hit him. Whether it was the car or the fall that killed him will be the big legal question.

I’ve watched that four times now and still can’t figure out what happened. Sad news 🙁

at 8.28 you see him rolling back down the bank, wearing blue jeans i think. he was in the corner worst possible place imho. RIP.

Yeah on the bumper can I think you can see him crouched down on the outside of the turn, so the car has thrown him up the bank. Terrible place to stand but still…..