New rules are a boost to World Rally Championship

Rally of Sweden was driven in the last weekend. The rally turned out to be one of the most exciting and dramatic rallies for a while. Lots of this is thanks to the new rules which were introduced for 2015. 

First “victim” of these rules was Volkwagen’s Jari-Matti Latvala. He was in a tight battle against his team-mate Sébastien Ogier who was leading the rally. Both went off the road in the same stage: Ogier had a spin and was off from Latvala’s pace by some 30 seconds. Had it been season 2014, Latvala would have been given information about Ogier’s problems. But this is 2015. The rules now ban giving split-time information to the drivers. This is why Latvala had no idea that he was practically in the lead and kept pushing – and went off the road right before the end of the stage and lost over 8 minutes. His battle for win was over.

The new rules also say that the championship leader must be first on the road on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday the order will be reversed. This is a huge disadvantage for the championship leader in most cases. One can say that the rule is not fair: it punishes the driver who has done the best job – on the other hand, it makes the rallies more exciting. This is what we saw in Sweden. The victory battle went down to the wire and on last stage Andreas Mikkelsen, Ogier and Thierry Neuville all had a chance to claim victory. The last stage was full of drama as Mikkelsen had a spin and he lost his small lead and Ogier claimed the victory – despite driving in difficult road position in first days. Battles like these are what WRC needs!

Next event will be in Mexico and Ogier will suffer from being first on the road in this gravel rally. This opens the door to rivals, such as Latvala, Neuville, Mikkelsen. But there are more challengers who have a good road position for the first days: Mads Ostberg, Kris Meeke and Dani Sordo. It is difficult to draw conclusions based only on Monte Carlo and Sweden, but it appears that Citroen and Hyundai have developed their cars well and are now – thanks to the running order too – in a position they can actually challenge the Volkswagens. Ford will get its updates later this spring and Hyundai will introduce next version of their rally car. Keeping all this in mind, it is very likely that we see winners outside Volkswagen team this year. If I were to bet, I would place my money on Meeke, Neuville and Sordo.