The FIA, the governing body of the World Rally Championship, passed a handful of changes to the general format and structure of WRC rallies. These changes will go into effect next season. Here’s a short list:

1. Expanding the calendar to 16 rallies, instead of 14. Added are Rally Mexico and Rally Japan, both gravel events.
2. Factory teams may only enter two cars in each rally, and both cars will count toward manufacturers championship points.
3. The traditional recce’s (reconnaissance runs on the rallies’ stages to make pacenotes) during gravel events will be changed to a Mille Piste format.

First, before I comment on the first two, here’s an explanation of the third change. Typically, for a gravel event, a driver and co-driver will recce each stage in a road car at slow speed, either creating pacenotes for newer stages, or polishing pacenotes for stages that have been used in the past. Then, the morning before the stages are run, each team has a “gravel crew” that drives the day’s stages, confirming pacenotes, and noting any changes in the surface due to either the shakedown, weather, or other recces. The Mille Piste format changes two elements. First, the teams will recce the stages in their rally cars. Second, gravel crews will be eliminated, thereby removing any confirmations on pacenotes.

The FIA’s reasoning behind this change was purely economics: teams would not have to hire gravel crews, and they would not have bring recce cars to each event. But the teams and drivers are not happy about this, primarily for safety reasons. The gravel crews provide a bit of security, confirming pacenotes, and making changes to them if necessary. The drivers (and co-drivers) also have issues with recce’ing stages in their WRCs. Why? Take a look at a photo of a WRC from the front. Note how you can barely see the co-driver’s head. Kinda hard to take good pacenotes when you can’t see the road. The co-driver’s seat is basically bolted to the floor to lower the center of gravity of the car. Richard Burns’ co-driver, Robert Reid, also pointed out how it would be write notes in the cramped interior of a Peugeot 206.

The two car rule will leave a few drivers out of work for next season, most notable at this point, Freddy Loix. Loix just inked a deal with Peugeot to drive a third factory car in gravel events next season, but now, he’s out of work. But, we should have quite a manufacturer’s championship next season….the Peugeot juggernaut is being dismantled, Citroen, Subaru, and Ford all have legimate shots at the championship.

And for the record…the extra rallies are a good thing, bringing a rally to North America, and another rally to the Pacific.

Posted on 9 September 2003