2017 World Rally ChampionshipRally 

  • Thread starter Accro2008
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GOTMAXPOWER
It looks nice but I don't have high hopes based on the quotes of those who have driven it. Hopefully they can turn things away quickly, Hyundai went from a blank sheet of paper to championship favourites in 4 years, hopefully TMR can do the same.
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Ogier drove it on gravel and said it was fine but not on tarmac, but that was it's first time on tarmac.
 
[Nor]MclarenF1
That's good news indeed. WRC has been on the back foot for some time now when comes to coverage.
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You can thank Vladimir Antonov for that. He was the Russian banker who bought the commercial rights to the sport when they were up for tender a few years ago, only to get caught during the Bank SNORAS scandal in Latvia and Lithuania. He and his partners were offering residential and commercial loans with grossly-inflated interest rates, then repossessing the properties and stripping them of assets to turn a profit. He fled the country when Interpol issued a Red Notice with his name on it, but turned himself in to the London Metropolitan Police a few days later. Red Bull House Media stepped in to save the commercial rights for the time being, but the whole thing was balanced so precariously that nobody wanted to breathe too loudly around it for fear of knocking it off its axis.
 
Accro2008
Red Bull actually have a quite a huge part in a lot of official driver contracts from Thierry Neuville to Elfyn Evans, they pay up to a certain percentage of their salary every year (from 10% up to 50%). Not really surprising they were one of the first to know/announce the Ogier deal since they have the biggest contract with him in wrc.
However that doesn't mean M-sport will or wont have a sponsorship deal with Redbull next year, especially if Ford does indeed bring back official support.

Looks like I was right, it looks like it is a new generation of Yaris (especially from the back view) :
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Latvala, Hanninen confirmed for official toyota drivers in 2017.

Update 1 : Lappi confirmed too as a test driver for the moment, third driver later in the year.

Update 2 :

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full gallery here : http://toyotagazooracing.com/release/2016/wrc/1213-01.html
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I'm surprised it's not Panasonic.

Accro2008
There is one turbocharged yaris in the work, don't know yet if it's going to be 4wd unfortunaly ...
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Makes me want to walk into a Toyota showroom and drop $15k on a Yaris.
 
Accro2008
especially if Ford does indeed bring back official support
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That seems to be a pipe dream at the moment. Henry Ford III was in Cockermouth recently, but it's believed that the visit had nothing to do with Ford putting their name to the team.
 
Here's a worry with the new Faster regulations - are they going to be too quick for the co-drivers? Surely there will be a point where the cars are flying through corners so fast that co-drivers can't give enough information in time to the driver.
 
Jimlaad43
Here's a worry with the new Faster regulations - are they going to be too quick for the co-drivers? Surely there will be a point where the cars are flying through corners so fast that co-drivers can't give enough information in time to the driver.
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Nicolas Gilsoul (codriver of Thierry Neuville) said it shouldn't be a problem at all in an interview a few weeks ago, cars still need to be quite a bit quicker before codriver becomes useless.

Ogier pushing hard with the fiesta in Sweden :


And Meeke crashed this evening :
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Jimlaad43
Here's a worry with the new Faster regulations - are they going to be too quick for the co-drivers? Surely there will be a point where the cars are flying through corners so fast that co-drivers can't give enough information in time to the driver.
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If codrivers could give notes during Group B era with 500bhp when I am sure 80bhp extra won´t hurt
 
Simmpa
If codrivers could give notes during Group B era with 500bhp when I am sure 80bhp extra won´t hurt
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It's not the straight-line speed that's the problem, it's the cornering speeds. These cars turn a lot quicker than the Group B's could, and seeing as rallying is mostly turning corners, it will be a problem if they're flying though 7 corners in the time it takes the co-driver to say 5.
 
Jimlaad43
It's not the straight-line speed that's the problem, it's the cornering speeds. These cars turn a lot quicker than the Group B's could, and seeing as rallying is mostly turning corners, it will be a problem if they're flying though 7 corners in the time it takes the co-driver to say 5.
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It takes maybe 1 or 1.5 seconds to say "left 6 into." I highly doubt any rally car or any race car could go through multiple corners at speeds faster than 1.5 seconds. If that happens, then I'd say the G-Forces would be so high that the driver and co-driver would likely die to them.
 
Private testing are not really private nowadays with social medias, even in the middle of a snowy forest in Norway. If there is a way to see the cars rallyfans will always find it. :D



Those new cars are indeed on a whole other planet compared to the 2016 cars, It's incredible. :eek:
 
Jimlaad43
It's not the straight-line speed that's the problem, it's the cornering speeds. These cars turn a lot quicker than the Group B's could, and seeing as rallying is mostly turning corners, it will be a problem if they're flying though 7 corners in the time it takes the co-driver to say 5.
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The crews will simply adjust their timing. If you've seen the "Top Gear" segment where Kris Meeke and James May took a Bentley Continental through a Rally GB stage, you'll see that - by the end, at least - May was calling the pace notes well in advance of the corners. Pace notes aren't called on the spot, as the exit of one corner will define the entry to the next (and vice versa), so drivers need to know well in advance. So if there's a sequence of seven corners coming up, the co-driver will have called at least four before the car enters the first corner.
 
prisonermonkeys
The crews will simply adjust their timing. If you've seen the "Top Gear" segment where Kris Meeke and James May took a Bentley Continental through a Rally GB stage, you'll see that - by the end, at least - May was calling the pace notes well in advance of the corners. Pace notes aren't called on the spot, as the exit of one corner will define the entry to the next (and vice versa), so drivers need to know well in advance. So if there's a sequence of seven corners coming up, the co-driver will have called at least four before the car enters the first corner.
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This. The pace notes aren't read out as each corner is approached. The pace notes which are being read "at the moment" are for obsticles which are still well up the road, often times 100m or more.

The job of the driver is to keep a running tab on what the navigator is saying, using half their mental capacity to "visualize" what is coming up ahead, while the other half of the brain needs to focus on what the car is physically doing in the moment.

This is why everyone uses different pace notes and different timing, because all the drivers "render" the road ahead of them in slightly different ways.

But it's this dual task, one of mentally "rendering" the road in front, while also having full control of the present situation, is what really sets modern rally drivers apart from the rest of drivers.

It should be noted though, that as much as the drivers do rely on the pace notes, most of the top drivers have most of the top rally sections memorized front to back, top to bottom.
 
twitcher
It should be noted though, that as much as the drivers do rely on the pace notes, most of the top drivers have most of the top rally sections memorized front to back, top to bottom.
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Which is one of the reasons why organisers like to vary the routes from year to year.
 
What's funny is that Corisca is spread out over the entire island. It's not exactly accessible to people who go to watch every day of action as it requires a silly amount of travel no matter where you base yourself on the island. Stage length isn't the issue, they should group them all closer together if they want a higher turnout.
 
Simmpa
WRC is becoming a joke, imagine if F1 races just had 20 laps instead of usual 60? Soon every round of WRC will just consist of tiny loops in crowded cities.
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It's the age-old problem of trying to balance the competing demands of a challenging route with spectator access. However, after reading the article, a few things stand out:

The asphalt event, which has moved from the end of September to an earlier 6-9 April slot on the 2017 WRC calendar, will cover 316.76 competitive kilometres next season – 74.16km less than crews tackled in 2016.
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So while the 2017 event may be shorter than the 2016 running, the planned route is still on par with the other rallies. Most of them come in at around 300km to begin with. The 2016 event did 390km, which is unusually high. Although Jean Todt might not be impressed, since he has been pushing for the WRC to adopt an "endurance" format.

The length of the four stages that will run on Friday have been reduced by 37.04km, while Saturday's four tests have been shortened by 37.12km.
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Secondly, while the exact route remains to be seen, the stages are only being trimmed by an average of eight kilometres.
 
A sixteen-round calendar is the FIA's long-term objective:

http://www.speedcafe.com/2016/12/17/wrc-stake-aus-v-nz-2018/

Accro2008
Andreas Mikkelsen will be at the start of rally Monte Carlo, He is on the entry list but with a fabia R5 in WRC 2
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It's disappointing that the Polo R couldn't be saved. Although maybe they can throw something together for Sweden and do what Citroën did this year in contesting a partial campaign.
 
Accro2008
Andreas Mikkelsen will be at the start of rally Monte Carlo, He is on the entry list but with a fabia R5 in WRC 2 ... : https://www.rallye-magazin.de/wm/artikel/d/2016/12/16/mikkelsen-startet-im-skoda-fabia-r5/
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Please correct me if I am wrong but being entered as a WRC2 runner (rather than a regular entry in a R5 car) includes testing restrictions. The only reason I can see for him to do that is because he expects to not drive a WRC or WRC16 car this season, he is surely favourite for the championship though (he has good form in a [Older] Fabia, he won IRC when it was as competitive as WRC).
 

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