Rally news
A rethink is needed to make sure World Rally Championship goes to the fans – and pleases teams
M-sport team principal Richard Millener has delivered a radical solution which could fix Wales Rally GB’S service park conundrum, and help the World Rally Championship take a significant step forward in bringing the sport to the people.
Britain’s round of the WRC was lambasted by some of rallying’s leading lights for a Llandudno town centre service park which was disjointed and unable to bring the leading teams together.
The four manufacturers were in three car parks away from the seafront, while the sport’s second tier, lower runners and the national event took the prime location looking out to sea.
The problem facing Britain’s premier event is the differing size of the service park structures utilised by the main teams. Millener has a solution which he says has already garnered some support in the service park and among the stakeholders.
Millener told MN: “Llandudno really brought home the problem we have right now. I don’t think anybody could argue with the philosophy of taking the rally to the people. We have to be in towns and cities, we all know that.
“With the best will in the world, the hardcore [fans] will come and see us no matter where we are, be it Deeside or Llandudno. What we need are the families and the next generation. And one of the biggest obstacles we have in getting there is the size of the areas needed.
“My suggestion is to have the four teams work together to find out exactly what we need in terms of size. When you look at what Hyundai need, you can understand the problem facing organisers now. They need 100 square metres, it has to be flat and Tarmac to take the weight of something like that. We go to the organisers and they’re saying: ‘Yeah, no problem,’ and then they go and find Deeside or they go and find a runway in Sweden. We get the right dimensions, but they’ve forgotten about the lack of people.
“All the teams need the same things at service, we need electricity, air, hospitality, catering and offices, so why don’t we unify things? Why don’t we bring in the same service [park infrastructure] for all the teams? This is what we’re talking about now. There’s real cost-saving in terms of getting one supplier to bring the whole infrastructure, set it up and service it. If we keep these structures to one level then they don’t need absolutely level ground and we would contain some of the health and safety issues.”
Millener said the time had come for WRC to take a lead from Formula 1.
He added: “We see F1 teams limited for space in the paddock a lot of the time and they get around this by creating this kind of village. Llandudno has given this point real relevance, we need to get into towns and this kind of approach would make that possible and give rally organisers the chance to do something really special.”
Asked if the M-sport-style tents were the answer for the whole service park, Millener said: “It doesn’t need to be like that. It could be, but there are lots of options to look at and that’s what we’re talking about now. It could be tricky to get it unified, but the chance to just drive spares trucks into a service park already set-up has to be interesting.”
The service park was a point of discussion in Wales, but the long days also caused significant disquiet. Millener had an answer to that question too.
He said: “Did the night stage really bring anything? If we’d missed out the light-fitting zone, we could have had the cars in service around 1900hrs on a Friday – that would have been great for families. After service, we could have fitted the new tyres and sent the cars down to Newtown. The crews could have stayed over there and left service at 0900hrs the next morning. With no morning service and lunchtime service, that would have had a big impact on our personnel and how we worked the day. We’ve got to think about these things.”