FIA LAUNCHES HUNT FOR NEXT WRC SUPERSTAR
TANAK SURVIVES 113MPH SMASH
The FIA will launch its first ever worldwide driver programme to find the next World Rally champion later this season.
The scheme – to be known as Rally Star – will offer drivers the potential of four funded years to take them from grassroots to the very top of the sport.
FIA rally director Yves Matton told Motorsport News: “This is the first time the FIA has done this – we want to find the best talent from all around the world.”
The world motorsport governing body, the FIA, will begin a global search for the next generation of World Rally champions later this year when Rally Star is launched in the summer.
The FIA will break new ground in its efforts to unearth rallying’s next stars, offering them an unparalleled opportunity to follow in the footsteps of current world champion Ott Tanak.
In an attempt to make Rally Star as accessible as possible, drivers under the age of 24 or 25 (still to be defined) will be able to enter via a computer game or what the FIA is calling a motorkhana event.
The initial engagement model is based on the French motorsport federation’s enormously successful Rallye Jeunes programme, which helped kick start the careers of world champion Sebastiens Ogier and Loeb.
The FIA’S Rally Star project leader Jerome Roussel was involved in the early years of Rallye Jeunes.
Roussel told MN: “One of the keys to the success of [Rallye Jeunes] was that it took the biggest possible sample of drivers. In the biggest year, there were 10,000 entrants. These drivers came from across France, they paid a small entry fee of €15 to enter the initial event.
“That initial event was similar to motorkhana. We call it
motorkhana because in England we understand that gymkhana has something to do with horses. Essentially it’s a set of cones laid out for the drivers to go as quickly as possible around. But, you know, from that first sampling of drivers all it took was 20 seconds for us to understand which drivers would be good enough to go forward. That’s what we’re going to do.”
The FIA is developing a
Rally Star toolkit for distribution to national motorsporting authorities across the globe.
“We have 140 ASNS [national governing bodies],” said Roussel. “And 51 of them run international rallies. What we’re building is the toolkit which will show the local governing bodies how to run a Rallye Jeunes-style selection process. It will instruct the ASNS in how to set out the competition, how to run it if you have this much space or how to do it if you only have a limited area. It explains how many marshals you need and how to run the timekeeping side of the event. It’s very simple and a very quick way to sample the first round of the potential drivers.
“It’s vital to make a big sample and get as many young men and ladies in as possible – the bigger sample, the more chance we have of finding the really good one.”
As well as the motorkhana event, the digital entry aspect is aimed at setting the barrier to entry as low as possible.
Roussel explained: “We are working with Codemasters and Bigben on the DIRT and WRC 8 computer games. I’m waiting for their proposals. Basically, we told them we wanted to be able to change the parameters in the game – we want to make sure we’re selecting the good driver and not necessarily the good gamer. For this we can change some of the coding and alter the weather in the one of the stages so we can see how they are adapting to conditions.”
The FIA’S plans involve a virtual qualification event which can be entered on two levels. People can either enter it from their bedroom where they play the game, or they can go to an organised simulator event in, for example, a shopping centre.
Roussel added: “We want to appeal to all cultures around the world and we know in Asia, the digital culture is really stronger than it is in Europe. Attracting drivers from all around the world is so important in this project.
“As the WRC develops and becomes more global, it’s interesting to note that we have 15 European drivers at the top level. We need to find the drivers from outside of Europe.”
Beyond the first round, the
ASNS will be required to select their finalists to forward to one of six continental finals in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, Africa, Asia Pacific, North America and South America.
“We will take the winning six drivers from those finals,” Roussel said. “We will take one lady driver as well. That is, of course, not to say the ladies won’t be winning the continental finals. But we have at least one girl.
“These drivers will then go forward for a year of development, testing and coaching. In this year they will participate in between six and eight regional and national rallies in Europe. The best three then go forward to a two-year programme in the Junior World Rally Championship. If one of the drivers wins the JWRC then we will provide them with a
WRC 3 drive for the year after.”
Initial funding for the scheme comes from the FIA fund for innovation, but the FIA is chasing further partnerships and investment to make Rally
Star sustainable.
Pirelli, the WRC’S single-tyre supplier from next season, is likely to be involved in what is emerging as a modern-day equivalent to the Pirelli Star Driver programme, a scheme which current world champion Tanak was part of in 2010.
FIA rally director Yves Matton said: “We have looked at Rallye Jeunes and Pirelli Star Driver and what is new in the motorsport world. We have a mix of these things; we link them to the current generation and give them global relevance. The selection must be different if we’re going to Africa, Europe or Asia and this is what we do – we make it more straightforward. This is exciting, it’s the first time the FIA has had a proper global talent programme. We introduce this to the ASNS in June and then work towards the first intake as soon as possible.”
Red Bull says Honda’s
“good increases” in power means it has “no more excuses” in terms of not being a competitive force in the 2020 Formula 1 title race.
The team enjoyed an encouraging first year with Honda in 2019, and ambitions have increased for the campaign ahead – with Red Bull targeting a fight for title glory.
Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko believes
Mercedes remaining such a strong force in F1 means Red
Bull cannot afford to be playing catch up in performance terms or in the points table by not hitting the ground running from the first race.
“We want to fight for the championship and to do so we know that we have to be competitive with the chassis right from the start – and that means the very first race,” said Marko.
Last year, Red Bull’s campaign started slowly as it took it several races to get on top of the front wing changes that came in to force for 2019.
An update introduced at the Austrian Grand Prix unlocked the full potential of the car, however, and Max Verstappen scored three victories over the remainder of the campaign.
Marko famously set a target of five wins last year, and for
2020 his sights are set on doing even better than that.
“Honda has good increases for this year,” he said about the forthcoming season.
“And since everything has been fulfilled so far, we assume that this will happen. That means we have no more excuses, in plain English.”
Asked to be specific on how many races he thinks the team can win, he said: “I think it will have to be more than five.”
Marko also said Red Bull will not consider bringing former juniors like Jean-eric Vergne back into its F1 fold in the future.
A shortage of F1-ready drivers in its junior scheme two years ago led to Red Bull signing Brendon Hartley, who had left its programme in 2010 and had subsequently won the Le Mans 24 Hours and the World Endurance Championship title with Porsche since being dropped originally.
Though Hartley lasted just over a season at what was then Toro Rosso in 2018, the precedent of his return has raised questions over other ex-drivers.
WEC and Formula E champion Sebastien Buemi, Red Bull’s reserve driver, and fellow FE champion Vergne have been repeatedly mentioned as potential candidates for Red Bull-controlled vacant seats.
Marko said of such drivers’ chances of returning to F1 with Red Bull: “The topic is closed. They have made careers in other directions and other motorsport categories.
“Now, if a Jean-eric Vergne wins Formula E, it’s something completely different from the requirements that we have in Formula 1.
“It would take him a whole season to get used to the specialities of a Pirelli tyre. So for that reason, it’s all in the past.” Additional reporting by Christian Nimmervoll