“Why are there so few one-make series left?”
Nostalgia can often be dangerous, but in the case of one-make rally championships, the rosetinted spectacles are perfectly justified. It’s desperately sad that there’s only one true example left today. Kudos must go to Ian Arden and John Pritchard for keeping the series that, in its previous M-sportrun Fiesta Sport Trophy guise, helped launch the careers of drivers like Craig Breen, Elfyn Evans, Matt Edwards Alastair Fisher. The new iteration has done similar things for today’s young hopefuls too, but how has the UK gone from having several one-make series to just one?
Throughout the 2000s alone, the Peugeot 106/206 Super Cup, Citroen Racing Trophy, Suzuki Swift Sport Cup, MG ZR Super Cup, Fiat Stilo Rally Cup and the Mitsubishi Evo Challenge were just some of the ultra-competitive one-make series that all supported the British Rally Championship. National championships had plenty of one-make cups on their roster too; one of the most revered example perhaps being the 205 Ecosse Challenge in Scotland.
Obviously a large slice of the appeal in one-make championships is the chance for the best driver to truly rise above the parapet as everyone is in equal machinery. To win a one-make series, car preparation is key and it’s then up to the driver to maximise every ounce of performance from both themselves and the car to come out on top.
Traditionally anybody that did that would get their just reward. Prizes were, in truth, the real seller to competitors which, in the case of several of the aforementioned examples, led to a works drive in the British championship. That is no opportunity to be sniffed at.
But sadly the rallying landscape has changed a lot in the last decade. Put simply, the lack of manufacturer interest in British rallying nowadays has caused the well of one-make series to run dry. Works drives can’t be offered as there’s no works drive in the first place and no manufacturer is willing to dip its hand into its pocket to fund a series at a national level.
In the wake of the current coronavirus pandemic, this is extremely unlikely to change.
And that’s a shame because there’s undeniable value to manufacturers in running these series. As one M-sport insider once put it: “We didn’t really make any money on the ST programme but what we did do is make a new generation of R5 drivers.”
I speak for the entire community when
I pray the horse bolts the stable and a bundle of manufacturers begin supporting the next generation of talent so that Fiesta ST Trophy can be one of many, not one of one.