Autosport Magazine is reporting that big changes are afoot for the 2015 WRC, seemingly driven by sponsor pressure to generate a bigger television audience. Sadly, so far the leading contender is apparently a Made-For-Live-TV event that seeks to package the conclusion to the event as a one hour "shootout".
In other words, all that happens over the first two days will in effect be the longest qualifying session in motorsport history. To be blunt, that approach simply beggars belief. Even in Formula One, the qualifying sessions total only 45 minutes of competing against the clock, and of course, the qualifying in F1 is telecast live. Thereafter, once start positions have been sorted, the racers are still free to compete for first place regardless of where they start, or their likelihood of succeeding.
Not so in the suggested format we're hearing about for the WRC.
There won't be two days of live TV while the drivers battle for ascendancy. We're still going to get a second-best situation of a 30 minute delayed broadcast summary of each day's competition, so no benefit there from the changes mooted.
And for reasons best known to the concept's promoters, 9th and 10th placed drivers following the first two days will only be able to compete for 9th place, 7th and 8th compete for 7th place, and so on up to 1st and 2nd competing for 1st. Are they serious?
I would have written this suggestion off as fanciful mischief-making had the proposal not been associated with none other than VW WRC supremo Jost Capito! Also, the Voice of Rally himself, Colin Clark, is making the case for it on his Twitter feed.
But there's more. The proposal also introduces a points system whereby at the end of each qualifying session, (each day, in other words), points are awarded based on that day's total times and allocated to competitors. How that would work is anyone's guess, but it seems highly unlikely that any competitor other than the first 10 or maybe 15 would be eligible for those points.
So the combination of points accrued across both qualifying days would dictate the ten finalists for the shootout.
However, it doesn't stop there. This proposal also uses a calculation of each competitor's times to work out a seconds-per-kilometer advantage going into the shootout. The example written about by Autosport is that if competitor A has a total time advantage over competitor B across the qualifying sessions of say, one tenth of a second per km, and the shootout stage is 10 km long, then competitor A gets a one second time advantage over competitor B. (0.1 seconds/km times 10 km equals 1.0 seconds advantage).
Of course, the same applies to all of the competitor pairings in the shootout, based on their per km comparisons. Simple? Not so much...
My question to those promoting this proposal is "why"?
Rallying, by it's very nature, is a marathon type of event - in a similar vein to le Mans 24 hour race - and making the changes proposed will remove the very thing that makes the WRC what it is.
I get that the sponsors want a return for their investment, and not so very long ago, the WRC was in real danger of being lost altogether. So clearly, to avoid the catastrophe of there being no WRC, something needs to be done. But regardless of the best intentions of the promoters, this proposal is needlessly convoluted and it robs the sport of the character that makes it as popular to its millions of followers as it is.
But taking pot-shots at others' suggestions is easy. Coming up with a better idea is not. However, I would suggest that the FIA and promoters strongly consider video streaming the whole event across the web in much the same way WRC Live radio already does with audio, except that it features video of the cars in action, including perhaps in-car footage, not just end of stage reporting. If I can get a big screen experience from the likes of Netflix over the internet, the WRC should pose few issues.
It does require the will to make it happen though. So I assure the promoters that I would gladly tune in during the wee small hours to watch that from the other side of the planet. And I know a number of others who would do the same.
Food for thought, WRC?
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