Rally cars don’t need more grip...

‘F1 was allowed to be ruined by engineers for the pleasure of the very few’

I AM PREPARED TO BE PROVED WRONG ON THIS. IN fact I hope I am. But I genuinely fear that those in charge of the World Rally Championship have lost the plot.

This month, those at evo who have a far more extensive anorak collection than me have spent more time with Citroën’s WRC driver Kris Meeke than they have with their own families. The rest of the time they’ve been chasing the news on every 2017 WRC team from Ford to Toyota and Hyundai and even Volkswagen. And it’s what they have reported back that’s of concern.

For 2017, power is up. Corner speeds, too. The centre diffs are back, and programmable mid-stage, while aerodynamics are, well, judge for yourself on page 110. I grew up in Essex and even Harlow’s finest tuning emporium of the 1990s, Ripspeed, would view next year’s WRC cars as OTT in the flicks-and-wings department.

It’s the aero that’s the genuine concern. Rally cars don’t need aero and the extra grip it provides. Does it really matter if Meeke is five seconds quicker over a stage than he was last year? It does if he wants to win, but to the spectator it means nothing. We really don’t care about a tenth here or a hundredth there. We care about action and drama that we can actually see. That means watching a driver balancing a car between grip and slip on an unpredictable surface with no access to a pre-set differential that’s going to haul them out of trouble. Or wind-tunnel-honed aero that allows for perfect flight over a Finnish yump.

WRC drivers are among the most talented in the world; their feel for a car is impossible to comprehend. But the way their sport is going, their exuberance, entertainment and skill are being dulled by engineers getting excited about the latest diff map and aero device. F1 was allowed to be ruined by engineers for the pleasure of the very few – please don’t let it happen to rallying, too.

And on that cheery note, thank you for your support throughout 2016 and, from all at evo, I wish you a happy New Year.