WRC IS READY TO CHARGE
The news that the WRC’s big three – Hyundai, M-Sport Ford and Toyota – have committed to embracing the hybrid future that is coming for the mixed-surface discipline’s top flight gives the contest a level of stability that is almost unmatched in motorsport, and something that can only be very positive for the future of rallying. The road car market, which is a direct reflection of why these manufacturers compete in the first place, is a shifting landscape at the moment. Turning to hybrid motivation is only part of the story, with many world governments under pressure to make sure the products on our streets are fully electric.
But, for now, hybrid cars will be a stop-gap for the future and simply have to be embraced by all forms of motorsport for them to continue, and also to continue to be relevant. So the FIA – which is also a stakeholder – and the WRC Big Three are to be applauded.
If you think that the pathway to electrification, or even the introduction of hybrids, of any series is simple, look at what happened to the World Rallycross Championship. It prevaricated for so long over how and what to do with its hybrid future that, essentially, the manufacturers lost interest in the direction the series was going and they all grabbed reverse gear after lots of round-table discussions.
The series will survive now it has mapped out a future, but it hit one heck of a speedbump that ripped out a lot of the momentum it had worked so hard to build up since it had been granted World championship status in 2014. The new commitments from the WRC makes and the FIA will mean that World rallying is on a much more positive footing going forward.
Elsewhere in this issue our Q&A incumbent is Northern Irish racer Kenny Acheson, a man who rarely gives interviews. The highly successful businessman has parked his racing career somewhere in his memory banks and is more keen to look forward rather than reflect on a career in which he came within a whisker of winning Le Mans and slid behind the wheel of some of the most iconic sportscars ever seen in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He is very humble and very self-critical when it comes to looking back over his achievements, but anyone who saw him hustle a car around a race track – particularly in his glittering Formula Ford career
– will have some very different opinions on his level of ability.
Also, included in this week’s Motorsport News, is our now-traditional National Racing Calendar. Paul Lawrence has stitched together the roster of events we can all look forward to this season and, after the choppy waters of 2020, it is truly a delight to be able to plan ahead with some certainty. Enjoy!