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Will the WRC return to competitiveness?


Nathan Strum

2,643 views

Admittedly, I've hardly been paying any attention to the World Rally Championship (WRC) for the past two years.

For starters, there hasn't been any U.S. TV coverage. No surprise there - we don't even get Rally America Championship races. All we get are GRC highlights, which is hardly rallying. Velocity does carry ERC highlights - at 5:00 AM Sunday mornings - but they don't start running them until the season is almost over. But at least it's something, and it's a lot more competitive than the WRC has been.

Which is the other reason I haven't been paying attention to the WRC: the lack of competition.

For years, Sebastien Loeb dominated the WRC, driving for Citroën. It became all-too predictable. And for awhile the only manufacturers left in the WRC were Citroën and Ford. So it wasn't even competitive from a manufacturers' standpoint.

Then Mini returned.

Then Mini left.

Then Ford left.

Then VW joined.

Then Loeb left.

Then Sebastien Ogier started dominating the WRC, driving for VW. And the same problem of predictability remained - just with a different Sebastien.

Then Hyundai returned.

Then Citroën left. Presumably because they weren't winning anymore.

Then Toyota announced it would return in 2017.

So at least we'd have more manufacturers again. And even though Citroën and Ford weren't fielding factory teams anymore, other teams were still running those cars.

But now VW is leaving. Despite having a new car for 2017. And the top driver in the sport on their team. After just having won their fourth championship in a row.

Wait... what?

Yep. Just hitting the newswire this afternoon, Volkswagen is dropping out of the WRC. At the top of their game.

Reportedly, this is due to VW scaling back on pretty-much everything because of their diesel scandal shenanigans. They're circling the wagons and regrouping, and motorsports just isn't something they want to keep investing in right now.

Now, the WRC probably isn't thrilled with this, since they've had enough trouble keeping manufacturers from leaving the sport, and have had their own share of controversies including disgruntled drivers and team owners, a lack of sponsorship, anemic TV coverage, rules controversies, cancelled rallies, and, of course, a perception of being uncompetitive and boring.

But the thing is - VW quitting may be just what the WRC needs.

Because what the WRC lacks the most - is competition.

And if Ogier - the most dominant driver in the sport - gets knocked down a peg or two because of this, then so much the better.

If you look at the Driver Standings, after Ogier, the next several spots are all pretty close.

Now, unquestionably, he's going to get snapped up by another team. But he will be starting over. And depending on the team, he could be at a significant disadvantage.

With VW out of the picture, there are really only two possibilities here: Hyundai and Toyota. While there are other teams in the WRC, none of them are factory-backed, so they wouldn't have the resources (or appeal) to bag him.

Hyundai has already set their driver lineup for 2017. But with Ogier on the market, all bets are off. And Hyundai has been aggressively pursuing their WRC campaign since they came back a few years ago. Plus, being an established team, they would have an appeal to Ogier.

However, my money is on Toyota. At the moment they only have one confirmed driver. And even though they're an all-new team for 2017, being the lead driver for Toyota would certainly appeal to Ogier's ego, and having the top driver in the sport would certainly be a huge prize for Toyota. Plus, if he repeated his early successes with VW, he'd come out of the gate winning. They wouldn't mind that at all.

Either way, he'd be on a new team - so he likely wouldn't completely dominate, at least until they got their feet under them a little bit. So that could make the WRC interesting again. For awhile.

Also not to be completely ignored are the other two VW drivers: Jari-Matti Latvala and Andreas Mikkelsen. This might be a good opportunity for Hyundai to upgrade a little bit by grabbing one of them. But my guess is if they miss out on Ogier, Hyundai will stick with their announced lineup, and Latvala and Mikkelsen will end up with one of the second tier teams - either M-Sport or Abu Dhabi.

There's also the very outside possibility that Ogier - who has been disgruntled with how the WRC has been run for most of his career - may just decide to pack it in, and go do something else. But I really doubt that. His ego won't permit it. He wants to destroy (former teammate) Loeb's WRC records, and won't rest until he's done so.

Anyway, VW is expected to officially announce this tomorrow. Then everything will start hitting the fan.

Addendum:

Whoops - I forgot that Citroën will be fielding a team again next year. However, given Ogier's bumpy history with them (when he was a teammate with Loeb), I don't think either party would be interested in getting back together.


Elsewhere in car news...

The new 2017 Impreza Sport is looking pretty nice. And although I'm more into dark blue...

2017-lapis-blue.jpg

I'm really digging the five-door in Island Blue Pearl:

2017-island-blue.jpg

That said, I've learned to never buy a new car in the first year of a re-design. Too many potential problems. So I'll wait and see how it all shakes out over the next year or so. But at least finally, there's a Subaru I'd actually want to buy again.

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Yep - Redbull.tv is the only coverage I can get here (without paying for the WRC subscription).

 

I use their AppleTV app - the videos are the same as those online, but I can watch on my HDTV.

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Bad luck for Neuville... guess he won't be cutting that corner next year.

 

The championship is still up for grabs, but I think Ogier will end up with it. He just doesn't seem to make that many big mistakes. He's not dominating, but apart from Finland, he's finishing consistently.

 

The question now seems to be... where will he end up next year? If Ford decides to back M-Sport, I think he'll stay there. Otherwise, I'm guessing Citroën will cut their losses with Meeke and throw money at Ogier in an attempt to land him. They recently hired Sebastien Loeb to do some testing for them, so they seem to be thinking a change is needed. I think Toyota is probably happy with their drivers (their cars need some work on reliability), and Hyundai has to be pretty happy with Neuville.

 

At any rate - hopefully we'll continue to see more of the same competitiveness next year, too! With or without a Seb in the car. ;)

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I didn't write an update for Rally Spain, but Neuville had a similar result there as he did in Germany - a seemingly minor bump in the road essentially ripped a wheel off his car, taking him out of the rally. More telling though - a similar bump ripped wheels off his teammates' cars - so that's pointing to an inherent weakness in the Hyundais, perhaps more than carelessness on Neuville's part. The amazing part of that rally though, was Kris Meeke bouncing back from a generally horrible season to pull off the win. It's great to see that the competitiveness is still strong this season, despite Ogier remaining at the top.

 

While Neuville's setback didn't guarantee the championship for Ogier, it was all but a done deal. So it really didn't come as much of surprise when, this weekend in Rally Great Britain, Ogier sewed up the driver's championship by coming in third, behind Neuville in second, and Elfyn Evans in his first-ever WRC victory (and in his home rally too, no less). After losing in Argentina by a heart-breaking 0.7 seconds, it was great to see Evans get redemption, as well as being the seventh different driver to win an event this year.

 

M-Sport also claimed the manufacturer's championship this weekend, so this was a great weekend for them all around (with Ogier and Evans both part of M-Sport). Whether it will be enough to keep Ogier on the team or not is another matter. He's being actively courted by Citroën, and it's pretty widely known M-Sport just doesn't have the deep pockets of the other teams. In fact, they've already lost Ott Tänak to Toyota for next year. If M-Sport can secure backing from Ford, I would expect Ogier to stick around. Otherwise, I can see him jumping ship for Citroën.

 

There's just one rally left, and although the championships are already decided, at least it should still be a good, competitive race. Welcome back WRC, to the world of entertaining motorsports.

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