STARS HERALD TOUGHEST WRC YET
Tour dec or se will highlight most competitive era
The World Rally Championship has entered a golden era to rival any other period in the series’ near 50-year history.
That’s the thinking of some of the series’ biggest names when asked to analyse form ahead of this week’s Tour de Corse.
Reigning World Rally champion manufacturer, M-sport’s Malcolm Wilson said: “This season is something special. It’s been a long time, if ever, that we’ve had the series so competitive. It’s fantastic; for me, the best yet.”
Citroen’s Kris Meeke believes the current crop of World Rally Championship drivers is as strong as the “golden era” of the likes of Colin Mcrae and Richard Burns in the early 2000s, and equal with any group in the WRC’S history.
Just three rounds into the season and already 13 drivers have scored fastest times and six drivers have led across the events so far – in Monte Carlo, Sweden and Mexico. This week’s Tour de Corse offers the year’s first genuinely level playing field in terms of road conditions, with no driver enjoying a significant advantage at the front or the back of the field.
“Definitely the championship is as strong as it’s ever been – there’s strength and depth from the teams and drivers all the way down,” said Meeke. “Every one of the four teams has winning drivers in there. Last time out in Mexico, there were four drivers going into the final day with a shot at winning, that’s typical these days.
“You could look to the time when Mcrae, Burns, Didier Auriol and Tommi Makinen and all of those guys were there and that was definitely a golden era, but then we went through the recession and we were left with just Ford and Citroen. At that time it was just [Sebastien] Loeb, Loeb, Loeb winning all the time and then a lot of the time it would be a Loeb-Sordo 1-2. It’s just not like that anymore. Trying to pick a winner for Corsica… you just can’t predict anything. Remember the time when Peugeot was in the championship [with the 206 WRC]? You’d come to an event like Corsica and you would have a pretty good idea that there was going to be a driver like [Gilles] Panizzi, we don’t have those sort of specialist drivers any more either.
“For me, this really is becoming a very special time in the championship and it’s very nice to be part of it right now. For sure, if you achieve something in this era then you’ve worked hard and definitely done your bit.”
During the dominance Meeke refers to, his now team-mate Loeb won every title between 2004-’12.
Just under a decade ago, with only Ford and Citroen competing as manufacturers, there were just a handful of drivers capable of winning rallies and even less able to sustain a season-long challenge to Loeb. The nine-time world champion has noticed a difference since returning to the series for Rally Mexico last month.
“The intensity in the competition is very high,” Loeb said. “When I was here before, it was Marcus [Gronholm] and Petter [Solberg] sometimes who were fighting, but now there are a lot of drivers. The level [of competition] is high.”
There were seasons at the start of the millennium when as many as seven teams contested the World Rally Championship, which never in those years did every
squad have a winning driver.
Asked who would make the most of the roads around Bastia, Meeke told MN it was impossible to make any predictions.
Meeke said: “[Sebastien] Ogier’s got to be the man to look to in Corsica, he’s fast everywhere. Then there’s Thierry [Neuville] who won in Corsica last year. But as well, you’ve got Ott Tanak, Dani Sordo and Jari-matti Latvala on his day can be good there. Elfyn’s [Evans] shown real speed in the wet; whatever his technique is, he’s certainly got no fear of aquaplaning. Even in the dry, in any conditions actually, he can be really strong.
“Esapekka Lappi’s got good experience of Corsica and then, of course, there’s Loeb. Where does this list end? You have six or more drivers in there with a very real shot at winning. I don’t think there’s anything like a safe bet on who will win in Corsica.”
M-sport team principal Malcolm Wilson echoed those sentiments and admitted he wouldn’t be putting his hand in his pocket for a wager this week.
“I’m really not sure who I would bet on for a win in Corsica,” he said. “Naturally, I’ll back Seb and Elfyn, but apart from our drivers there’s Kris, Thierry, Sebastien Loeb... so many drivers. This is really becoming a golden era for the sport. I think it’s absolutely fantastic, it’s so, so competitive – you don’t know who’s going to win from one week to the next.
“As well as that, the rallies are being decided by just a couple of seconds. The events are shorter than they were when I was competing, but the front of the field is so close and tight.”
MN’S graphic ( right) demonstrates a 2001 high of eight drivers winning, but that’s not entirely representative with two of the drivers, Panizzi and Citroen’s Jesus Puras, not contesting a complete programme of rallies. Looking further back, it’s possible to trace nine winners in the WRC’S inaugural 1973 season – when the series ran only for manufacturers – but none of those drivers started every round.