Rally Ireland was a success, but it's a mere patch for the WRC's unravelling tapestry, writes Justin Hynes
YOU COULD almost hear the collective sigh of relief all the way from Donegal on Sunday evening. Rally Ireland had done its job well, with every box ticked. A Sébastien Loeb win: done. A few hair-raising, televisually arresting moments: tick, with Chris Atkinson’s big shunt on Friday setting the pace. A climatic curve ball thrown in to give the event its very own, very damp character: no problem. The almost biblical deluges of Friday and Saturday took care of that. The drivers won’t forget Ireland 2009 in a hurry. For the world rally championship opener, God was in heaven, chucking down rally-making rain and all was right in the world.
Except for the WRC, it isn’t. Yes, Rally Ireland was a success and Loeb’s first win of the year garnered enough publicity to make the sport feel warm and fuzzy about itself, but the success of the opener was, for some, a good exercise in carefully papering over the cracks.
The entry list for the 2009 running of Rally Ireland was, for the series, painfully small. Just 36 entries were confirmed before the start of the event – down from a pre-event confirmation of more than double that for the inaugural 2007 event.
The bulk of those absent were, of course, local crews, but the WRC itself is a slimmed-down contest, the global economic meltdown making the opening round of this year’s championship less of a thrill than in past seasons.
In December, both Subaru and Suzuki announced their withdrawals from the series, economics dictating that both return to core concerns.
Suzuki’s exit had been widely predicted but the withdrawal of Subaru, a 20-year veteran of the sport, was a more significant blow, sending out signals that the series, now reduced to just two major manufacturers in Citroën and Ford, was struggling, as a combination of inflated costs, regulatory dithering and straitened times squeezed out all but the most successful.
However, Malcolm Wilson, whose M-Sport company runs both the BP Ford team and the Stobart-Ford outfit, begs to differ. “I think from the real spectator’s point of view, it doesn’t really damage it too much. I think it’s going to be as exciting if not more exciting,” he says. “Now you have a situation where, if you look at the last three-and-a-half years, the only people who have won have been Sébastien Loeb and Ford drivers. So, from Ford’s perspective, nothing has really changed in terms of the competition. But what has also happened is that you have the likes of Chris Atkinson going to Citroën and making that a strong challenge. So there is a possibility the championship could get more exciting.”
The sentiment is echoed by Andrew Tinkler, chief executive of the Stobart Group, which uses its WRC team to promote and grow its logistics brand.
“For us, Subaru and Suzuki pulling out can only be seen as an opportunity. Obviously, it wasn’t good news for the sport, but we see it as a good opportunity to gain brand awareness.
“There’s good competition between Citroën and Ford and it’s very close. If we can be part of that, if we can challenge for wins more than previously, then it has got to be good. There are two battles going on now. There’s Citroën and Ford fighting for the championship and the two other teams, ours and the Citroën junior team, fighting their own championship. It still has plenty of value.”
Wilson admits, though, that the series needs to become more affordable. “It’s true that things get out of control and, every now and then, you have to press reset and start again. And we are moving things forward with new technical regulations.”
Those new regulations, proposed by the FIA and due to come in for the 2010 season, suggest that a lower-cost car is the key and it has put forward its S2000 class as the model from which WRC should work.
“The S2000 car was designed to allow European manufacturers to compete with the like of the Group N production cars, the Subarus and Mitsubishis,” says Wilson. “Undoubtedly, we will end up with S2000. The question is what shape it will take in WRC.”
Currently, the FIA is leaning towards the implementation of a WRC “kit” for the top-level series, but last week in the run-up to Rally Ireland, FIA president Max Mosley suggested that, in the wake of the withdrawals of Subaru and Suzuki, the series may want to reconsider and bring the cost down further by running “straight” S2000 cars.
Wilson disagrees. “I believe we need that kit,” he says. “The World Rally Championship is the pinnacle and we would still favour a kit to keep WRC at the pinnacle.”
The wrangling over regulations, though, is doing its own harm. Both Volkswagen and Proton have hinted that they might enter WRC in 2010 but the longer the discussions over regulations continue, the further away commitments from new entrants get.
“If we can get through this next 12-month period and all the regulations get finalised and the cars become cheaper then I think we’ll be in a strong position. But the regulations have to be agreed.
“At the very latest it will be the March world council but we really need it before that as we need to get on.”
Beyond the technical nitty-gritty, there is also the key question of street appeal for WRC. The nature of the sport – long stages which cannot be covered well on television – makes WRC a tricky sport to translate. Wilson is convinced a new promotional deal, signed last week with media company International Sportsworld Communicators, will bring a new audience to WRC.
“With technology, you can bring people to it. If ever there was a sport that was built for the internet then it’s the World Rally. But you still have to convert the uninitiated and that’s the big task for ISC as the promoter.”
The final hurdle is, perhaps, the man who these days most embodies the sport: Sébastien Loeb. Wilson is quick to refute suggestions that Loeb’s dominance of rallying is bad for the sport. “I don’t see how anybody could say that Sébastien Loeb is bad for the sport. Maybe I’m too close to it but I just feel privileged to be working in the position I’m in when you have someone as special as Sébastien Loeb in the sport. However, it is absolutely right that the sport needs competition and a battle. When we had Colin McRae and Richard Burns battling it out, the press got hold of the love/hate relationship between them and it was fantastic. And rallying might still have the same profile if we had a similar battle happening now.”
For WRC there’s a way to go yet before it recovers the kind of audience it harnessed during those golden years. Rally Ireland may have been a positive start to the season, providing enough diversion to keep attention away from rally’s creaking top level, but there is much repair work still to be done.