The 2018 Rallying thread..(WRC, ERC, etc)

[Alex Langheck]

Well, it's 2018, so we may as well start a new thread. Let's hope it's more popular than the last few years.


https://www.autosport.com/wrc/news/133724/wrc-cons...

And the first story is just ridiculous.....Where will it end? Events are short enough as they are currently.

[zeb]

This is getting daft....were going to end up with 2 hour rallies at this rate.....

[RyanTank]

The current format is basically 2 day events now anyway with everything wrapped up by Sunday lunchtime Rallying has lost its heart of endurance and tests of attrition. I remember chatting with someone at Prodrive a while ago while standing around Burns' safari Impreza. the stuff they built specifically for that car to compete on just that event was the very nearly the same cost as a full season car apparently.

Its a shame that any endurance events have to be run as national events, and other than the R.A.C I'm not sure what other events hold the same format?

[anonymous-user]

Subscribed as I need to start watching more rally

[avenger286]

I actually enjoyed the wrc last year for the first time in a while so hope it continues into 2018. As for UK rallying I hope we get Mull back this year as the island was to quite last year with out the stage rally.

[Skylinecrazy]

Cambrian for me first on the list.

Looking forward to it and the entry list is looking good so far.

[df76]

avenger286 said:

I actually enjoyed the wrc last year for the first time in a while so hope it continues into 2018.

Yes, WRC should continue to be excellent through 2018. I see that Red Bull TV are already listing their "free to air" coverage, including a live Monte stage on Saturday 27th and a review every evening. Expecting BT Sport to be showing a live stage on the Friday night and then the Power Stage on the Sunday.

[epom]

Oh man, now that's aggressive, love it !! Maybe a sign of things going in the right direction at last

[Alex Langheck]

WRC 2018 was launched today at the Autosport Show.......

I can tell everybody was excited about this.

This year WRC+ will have all stages live - for the sum 89.99Euros......


http://www.wrc.com/en/wrc/news/january-2018/wrc-al...

[DelicaL400]

Alex Langheck said:

This year WRC+ will have all stages live - for the sum 89.99Euros......

Aye that'll help create new interest in the sport

The Fiesta livery looks good. Nice to see FMC plates back on the cars too.

I see Henry Catchpole is going to be doing BRC reports. Times must be hard.

[epom]

DelicaL400 said:

Alex Langheck said:

This year WRC+ will have all stages live - for the sum 89.99Euros......

Aye that'll help create new interest in the sport

The Fiesta livery looks good. Nice to see FMC plates back on the cars too.

I see Henry Catchpole is going to be doing BRC reports. Times must be hard.

Or maybe because of his genuine interest in rallying its his dream job ?
Henry could get a job writing for anyone.

[Allyc85]

I was vaguely interested in the all live Wrc+ service until I saw the price! As much as I like the sport there is no way I'd pay that, and my social life is bad enough as it is anyway!

Pretty diaspointed with the liveries on the 2018, WRC cars, with them all being so similar to last year. Only the M-sport car looks improved with minor changes, while the sponsor logos on the Toyota's dive planes look like they were just chucked on there last minute!

[RyanTank]

I was actually considering getting WRC+ this year, before the announcement of all this new version and the cost. I can neither afford it or will really have the time to make full use of it at that price. Looks like I'll be sticking with the RedbullTV stuff again, which I thought was ace last year

RE - This years liveries. what a snore fest. Its practically a cut n paste of last years efforts with minor splashes here and there.
The R5 Fiesta's effort looked better than the WRC's.

Nice to see the launch of the 2018 WRC was covered by all outlets yesterday

[df76]

Combi of free Redbull tv, C5 and cheap BT Sport is more than ebough coverage for me. That app price is ridiculous.

[Allyc85]

The launch was awful. They really hyped it up, but it literally was the cars parked in a hall with a few interviews. It also seems like the drivers have all escaped before the public days! Still I'm going on Sunday and looking forward to getting a closer look at that crazy Yaris!

[Alex Langheck]

RyanTank said:

Nice to see the launch of the 2018 WRC was covered by all outlets yesterday

Hmm, I thought the whole point of launching it at the Autosport Show was to generate interest in this years WRC. As normal, it was just the usual rally journalists covering it....

[PhillipM]

The cars were just basic rolling mock-ups anyway, most of the parts weren't finished, I'd be amazed if the actual cars aren't quite far from them - the Hyundai was even still on the standard pedal setup, the Toyota looked pretty aggressive and probably the closest to a finished article*, but the Citroen won't look anything like it did there - the rear three quarters were blatantly not the correct ones and tacked on, the rear wing didn't fit to it properly, and the roll cage looked like they were trying to weld it via Braille - it wouldn't have passed scrutineering for a small local event, never mind FIA.

• The brake/arch venting setup is insane up close, when you realise it's got 3 sets of those vanes in there running different directions!

[chunder27]

Its the NEC, what do you expect, most of the people who actually pay for the garbage will ahve thought it was amazing.

They must have or they wouldn't have paid 50 quid for a trade show!

[c6r]

df76 said:

Combi of free Redbull tv, C5 and cheap BT Sport is more than ebough coverage for me. That app price is ridiculous.

don't have BT sport but agree the redbull tv stuff was good last year. lots of youtube channels too if you just want to see cars without commentary. c5 would be fine if they spent their hour of highlights actually showing some rallying rather than asking ott tanak what he has for breakfast each day or showing seb ogier doing donuts round a car park with a b-list actor in the passenger seat.

re the rally length I actually think 2d + a bit would be fine if they could sort the coverage out properly. one of the few things f1 does properly is to sort it out so you have say 2h fp on Friday, 2h quali program on sat, 2h race program on sunday and up to recently on free-to-air tv. it all starts at the same time at least for the European races so you get into the habit of knowing when it'll be on and end up watching it more. if wrc could just have a 2h night stage prog on Friday night, 2h stage / highlights on sat afternoon at a fixed time, same for sunday, even if it was all on itv4, my5 or some other obscure free channel, I reckon they'd get a lot more interest.

[RyanTank]

Alex Langheck said:

RyanTank said:

Nice to see the launch of the 2018 WRC was covered by all outlets yesterday

Hmm, I thought the whole point of launching it at the Autosport Show was to generate interest in this years WRC. As normal, it was just the usual rally journalists covering it....

Yep, not even a mention of it on Pistonheads. which is a shame as they seemed to be upping rallying content on the front page.

c6r said:

re the rally length I actually think 2d + a bit would be fine if they could sort the coverage out properly. one of the few things f1 does properly is to sort it out so you have say 2h fp on Friday, 2h quali program on sat, 2h race program on sunday and up to recently on free-to-air tv. it all starts at the same time at least for the European races so you get into the habit of knowing when it'll be on and end up watching it more. if wrc could just have a 2h night stage prog on Friday night, 2h stage / highlights on sat afternoon at a fixed time, same for sunday, even if it was all on itv4, my5 or some other obscure free channel, I reckon they'd get a lot more interest.

the "modern" WRC format was adapted back in the 90's to encourage easier TV coverage (by none other than Mr David Richards), but they still claim its far too difficult to film, edit and produce in time to do a proper daily highlights package, yet RedbullTV and WRC+ have proved it is possible. Rallying isn't interesting enough for mainstream anymore, sponsors dont want to send mobile sales units into forests and that one of the reasons behind the recent push to have bigger & better service parks, or rally villages or whatever it is the FIA want to call them now.
F1 is easier to show as its all in one location so no need to send a driver 100km to pick up 20mins worth of fly by footage off a camera man. they can rock up, put a camera on every turn and it'll work for the 4 days of quali and racing that they need it for.

I'll watch it on whatever outlet I can find it on, as long as Jon Desborough isn't involved!