LUKE BARRY

“It will come as a blow to competitors”

Cost: it’s one of the single biggest problems affecting motorsport at the moment. The last thing any competitor or team needs is for the price of this already expensive sport to rise. But it has for rallying in 2019, and at such a rate that it has now become unjustifiable to some.

Not only that but some competitors willing to pay rising costs are unable to gain entry.

Have a read of the news story running alongside this column for a succinct breakdown of what’s happened but, in a nutshell, hiring rally cars out to customers is rapidly becoming less and less feasible.

Why? Rising insurance costs. How come? That’s the million-dollar question. Whether it’s because insurers are now not making as much money from rallying, or that health and safety has reached such a point that the risks simply don’t add up anymore remains to be seen.

But it will certainly come as a major blow to countless competitors up and down the country and to teams who generate business through hiring out cars.

The issue came to prominence earlier this month when TEG Sport couldn’t secure full cover for one of its Skodarus should a fire occur. After picking up the phone to several other outfits it soon became apparent this is more than an isolated issue. It transpires that several entries have been pulled throughout the country because of eye-watering premiums.

There is little to suggest that a driver hiring out a car is inherently posing more of a risk than one competing in their own car. But firms hiring out cars are particularly under the cosh because these cars are insured for all eventualities, whereas a competitor’s own car may not be.

Alex Waterman, team principal at EDSL Sport but also a driver, admits current premiums are off-putting to competitors.

“Companies like us have to be very careful when hiring cars out,” he says. “We invested £75,000 in the new [Ford Fiesta R2] cars and they need to be insured properly otherwise we lose the tools to our business. So we have a special trade insurance which has special clauses as we hire our cars out.

“We’ve only ever had one instance where we couldn’t insure someone and that was because of accident history. Accident insurance is getting very expensive and is definitely affecting hires. I’m sure we lose hires because of the price of insurance.”

The burning question then is what happens now? Will premiums settle in the next few months or continue to spiral out of control and affordability? The jury is still out on that one

I’m afraid, but this news comes at a time when top-line UK rallying could really do without it, that’s for sure.