WRC 2017 PREVIEW

Next year’s WRC will feature cars so advanced that some observers are already predicting a return to the Group B-style performance of the 1980s. Here’s what you can expect

THE WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP USHERS IN a new era of cars in 2017 – and the series has been dealt an even tastier script by the sudden withdrawal of the dominant Volkswagen team.

The arrival in November of four-time champ Sébastien Ogier and his teammates Jari-Matti Latvala and Andreas Mikkelsen onto the driver market was a major last-minute curveball for many of VW’s rivals. They’d been planning to spend time nailing down the specs of their cars ahead of the first round of WRC 2017, Rallye Monte Carlo. Instead, there was frantic activity from the likes of Toyota and M-Sport (which runs the Ford Fiesta WRCs) as they moved to get proven rally-winning talent on their books.

In the end, rumours of a privately funded team running the Polos weren’t quite enough to sway Ogier, who elected to join M-Sport and put number one on the side of a Ford for the first time in a generation. Latvala, meanwhile, signed up to a Finland-based super-team at Toyota, while Mikkelsen will be driving a Skoda R5.

Ogier sampled the latest Fiesta before committing to Malcolm Wilson’s M-Sport team, so he must have seen something he liked – but his preparations will still have been compromised. The car he starts the season with in Monte will not be a vehicle that he has developed to his tastes. And to compound matters, this has been happening as the sport makes one of its relatively rare jumps between World Rally car regulations. How quickly Ogier overcomes this may well decide the title, and define his legacy as one of the sport’s true greats.

The changes are extensive, and designed to improve the spectacle while still keeping costs manageable. The 1.6-litre engine format remains, but the turbo restrictor increases in size from 33mm to 36mm. As a result, the cars are expected to produce as much as 380bhp, and 678Nm of torque should be achievable.

Under the skin, the active centre diff – removed at the introduction of the 1.6-litre era back in 2011 on grounds of cost – is now back in, allowing the teams to play around with how the power is distributed to the mechanical front and rear diffs.

And while the basic format for the cars remains similar – front-engined cars, a minimum length of 3.9 metres – the teams have been allowed to widen the tracks, creating more dramatic shapes with the resulting wheelarch extensions. The ‘box’ into which rear wings must fit has been enlarged, too – as some of the extreme solutions explored during a year of testing have revealed.

There’s a tweak to the controversial rules on running order, too. The crews will still start the opening day’s stages in championship position – forcing the points leader to run first on the road and, on gravel events, sweep the loose gravel clear to expose a grippier surface beneath for his rivals. But instead of doing the same on the second leg, crews will now run in reverse order on the second and third days. It could result in closer finishes – and you can bet that those affected will not be shy in venting their frustration when it works against them.

Of the official teams remaining after VW’s exit, Citroën and Hyundai have been the most active with 2017 cars. The French marque took a year out, in effect, to develop a C3 that marks a return to the sport after six years with a DS. Hyundai’s i20 Coupe WRC is its third new World Rally car in as many years – a sign of how hard it has been fighting to establish itself against VW and Citroën Racing.

This is a year of potential for Hyundai; stability in its driver line-up, with Paddon and Neuville gunning for wins and steady hand Dani Sordo there to pick up points, makes it a strong contender for the manufacturers’ title.

M-Sport’s Fiesta certainly looks the part – and with promising Estonian Ott Tänak back in the fold, alongside Ogier, the Cumbrian team has what’s arguably its strongest pairing since the days of Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz.

Toyota team boss Tommi Mäkinen says 2017 is a learning year, and based on the footage of Ogier trying the Yaris WRC on asphalt, he could be right. Much will depend on the fickle mentality of Latvala, who can have blinding speed when he has ‘the feeling’ but is just as likely to fade into obscurity in the middle of the top ten when he doesn’t. And any team with a purely Finnish driver line-up risks obliteration on the WRC’s asphalt rounds.

More than anything, though, rallying’s hardcore fan base will be hoping there’s no dominance from any particular party, potentially taking the World Rally car rules back to their heyday, when Ford, Peugeot, Mitsubishi, Toyota and Subaru could each win on any given event. That sort of competition, and the increased spectacle of the cars in action, would be as good a sign as any of the WRC being back on course.