Hyundai Drops out of WRC for 2004 Season

[BadMojo]

Hyundai just dropped out of the World Rally Championship for the 2004 & 2005 seasons.

http://www.wrc.com/en_GB/News/...K.htm

Generally they sucked, but this just means that there will be even fewer manufacturer cars to watch next year. FIA just recently limited WRC manufacturer teams to 2 cars per team (like F1), and now there will only be 6 teams and 12 cars to watch.

I guess the only good news is that Mitsubishi returns next season, and I've read that Fiat might be joining in the fun in a few seasons.

It's kind of ironic that FIA claims to have introduced the "two car" rule to make it easier for new manufacturers to enter the WRC, and not two weeks later they lost one of the existing teams.

As a byproduct of this rule, it looks like Colin McRae may not be driving next year!

[lessthanjakejohn]

Who is FIA?

[Mr1der]

that rule sounds kinda dumb, any point to it?

[BadMojo]

that rule sounds kinda dumb, any point to it?

FIA (Federation Internationale de l'Automobile) is the governing body of the WRC and many other motorsports, like Formula One.

http://www.fia.com/homepage/fia.htm

Anyway, I think the purpose of the new rule was to lower manufacturer costs, and therefore lure some new ones in to the WRC. It was supposed to "even the playing field" a bit so teams that didn't have much of a budget (Hyundai) could compete with teams like Citroön and Peugeot.

I believe they've also changed the Recce rules and eliminated Gravel Teams for the same reason; these things can be expensive. Drivers have complained that this is going to make for some very unsafe races.

The odd thing is that FIA was originally going to allow the teams to run 3 cars, but the third drive had to be someone who never had a podium finish before. This was supposed to encourage teams to hire newer, younger drivers.

Now, a ton of drivers, including McRae, are finding themselves without a car to drive for 2004.

[Mr1der]

Perhaps McRae will find himself in the seat of a Kia, should make for amusing racing assuming Kia entered...

[lessthanjakejohn]

Quote »I believe they've also changed the Recce rules and eliminated Gravel Teams for the same reason; these things can be expensive. Drivers have complained that this is going to make for some very unsafe races.[/quote]explain or link please?

[BadMojo]

explain or link please?

http://www.wrc.com/en_GB/Home/...n.htm

Here's a link explaining the WRC jargon. Basically, both the Gravel Teams and Recce are ways for the teams to assess the conditions of the various stages.

Here's a link explaining the changes:

http://www.wrc.com/en_GB/News/...s.htm

I think it basically comes down to the fact that the drivers are going to have less knowledge of the stage conditions, which probably makes for a more dangerous rally.

Edit: The thought of a Hyundai Accent road car (not rally prepped) trying to navigate some of those stages boggles the mind. Hell, the Hyundai rally car barely makes it through them!

[lessthanjakejohn]

ah that sucks

Recce rules should be kept.

[BadMojo]

Well, they'll still do Recce. It just won't be as much as was done before, if I'm interpreting the changes correctly.

The only good thing about the changes is that there are two more events on next years calendar. Rally Mexico and Japan have been added. The Mexico one will be the first event held in North America!

[lessthanjakejohn]

I know itll be kept, i fixed my post.