MotorsFeature: World Rally Championship The WRC has an Irish stage in November this year. Justin Hynes reports
If you asked people to name the most consistently victorious driver in top level motorsport of recent years, most people won't take much time scratching their heads searching for an answer, Michael Schumacher they'll scream. More knowledgeable tyres might even plump for Fernando Alonso. Both would be wrong.
In fact, there are plenty who've probably won more but the dominance of F1 in the public consciousness when it comes to motorsport means that names like Sébastien Bourdais (recently crowned three-time Champ Car winner in the US) and Sébastien Loeb (recently-crowned three-on-the-trot world rally champion) are hardly ever top of the motorsport recognition list.
That, though, should be about to change. This coming weekend, Loeb, a man so dominant in World Rally cars that he makes a height-of-his-powers Schumacher look wayward, will begin his quest for a fourth consecutive WRC title in Monte Carlo. This is the traditional start point for a season which will run until December and which will reach Ireland in November, an event sure to put Loeb's name and the acronym WRC on the lips of sports fans all over the country.
The World Rally Championship, unlike Formula One, is not a sport which garners prime time coverage. Its stars are not invited on to reality TV shows to mug for the camera as their teams of z-list celebs smash through the crash barriers.
But despite the graveyard slot rallying is consigned to, its constituency, at least live and in person, is massive. And in Ireland, a country whose roads always provided for a rich rallying culture, the popularity of rallying has always stretched ahead of circuit-bound forms of motorsport.
Indeed, in 2007 Motorsport Ireland has more than 40 events scheduled that qualify as rallies of some shape or form, far more than any other type of motorsport. Despite the grassroots interest, rallying has never made the transition F1, to must-see TV status. The reasons are at first glance easy to understand. Unlike F1, there is little direct competition in rallying. It is conducted entirely against the clock, over a weekend, over any number of stages.
Aside from the initial shock value of seeing a car cresting a rise at 120mph or barrelling past trees along a forest track there is little to engage the casual viewer. It also, on the surface, lacks the chess-like strategy of F1.
But in recent years, with the use of "virtual stage" representations of drivers' approaches to sections and a more in-depth treatment of the personalities, technology and terminology of the sport, rallying has become more of a televisual experience, although one that still hasn't been fully embraced by terrestrial television.
That could change when the WRC comes to the northwest in November. But even if that isn't the case, the on-the-ground support and welcome should ensure that WRC Rally Ireland is one of the biggest and most lucrative sporting events the country has seen in recent years, able to hold up its head in the company of events such as the Ryder Cup and the Tour de France stages.
Indeed, in a country of comparable population, New Zealand, the WRC round (traditionally staged around Auckland; this year it moves to the Waikato region) boosts the local economy to the tune of NZ$50 million, approximately €27 million. There is also the prospect of having a television audience in the multi-millions tuning in to see a rally the WRC itself has already described as having the potential to be "a strong second to New Zealand" in the category of season's most beautiful rally. If that kind of revenue and tourists draw can be generated here, Rally Ireland will be a huge success.
Before the tour pitches its tents in Sligo there are 14 rounds ahead of it, starting in Monte Carlo this weekend, before heading for locales as diverse as Sweden, Norway, Mexico, Portugal, Argentina, Greece and Japan.
As the costs of rallying spiral, more and more manufacturers are pulling out of the championship. This season only three will contest with programmes of their own backing, Citroën (with Loeb and Spain's Dani Sordo driving), Ford (backed heavily by BP and with the Finnish pair of Marcus Gronholm and Mikko Hirvonen in the hot seats) and Subaru (with Australian Chris Atkinson and Noway's Petter Solberg).
This year the rest of the major league field is being made up of, so far, three privateer teams: the Munchi's team, which will be fielding twin 2006 Ford Focus cars in the hands of Argentinian drivers Luis Perez Companc and Juan Pablo Raies; the Stobart M-Sport Ford team and the OMV-Kronos Citroën team. A fourth, backed by Mitsubishi, was due to enter but that now looks unlikely.
Spiralling costs have edged out all but the bravest. Even so, the WRC still represents the acme of driving skill on any surface and its visit to Ireland in November will be hotly anticipated.
Formula One may have the glamour but it has definitely lost its guts and glory cachet. Rallying, despite its image of bobble hats, thermos flasks and anoraks has an edge-of-the-seat rawness F1 will never get back. We might be looking at a predictable season (with Loeb looking unbeatable for most of last term) but that could never be said of the events themselves, especially one as new and untried as Ireland in November.