Thierry Neuville is worried that the current Rally2 cars will be faster than the top-level cars under the new 2027 World Rally Championship technical regulations.
From 2027 top-level WRC cars will be more versatile and built to a cost cap of €345,000 in a bid to encourage more teams and manufacturers to compete.
The cars will also be much closer to the current Rally2 cars, powered by a Rally2 engine while featuring Rally2 brake and transmission package. Autosport understands that the speed of the 2027 cars will be slower than the current Rally1 and closer to the pace of the top-tier WRC cars from 2012-2016.
”The base of what they want to create is interesting, but I’m really worried about running Rally2 cars as the new Rally1 cars,” said Neuville when asked by Autosport about the new rules at a media round table at the Monza Rally Show.
“How will you handle the national championships? You will have Rally2 cars going faster than the new Rally1 cars. When you are starting second or third on the road and the older cars are starting 45th, a privateer will go faster than an official driver.”
Neuville is also frustrated that drivers are not able to offer input by having a representative on the FIA technical working group.
“I will make an email to the FIA, because I think overall with the drivers we had a lot of discussion about it,” said Neuville.
“The proposal is interesting but we are not happy, because we proposed to have one driver in the technical working group and they never accepted to put one of the drivers in the group. I think we have a lot of interesting input as well, but they just didn’t want it. That is why we basically voted no, but the proposal is interesting.”
Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala also shares Neuville’s concerns stating that the top-level WRC cars should be at least one second per kilometre faster than their Rally2 counterparts.
“[Rally1 and Rally2 cars] are getting quite close to each other. I think this is the target,” said Latvala. "The FIA wants to bring them closer together to help the young drivers get into the sport. But for sure there needs to be a difference.
“We need to be careful that we still keep the difference between the cars. The thing is, if they are too close, why buy the Rally1 if the Rally2 is that quick already? So then it won’t bring any privateers for the Rally1 cars. So there needs to be a difference.
“For me, Rally1 needs to be at least one second per kilometre faster than Rally2. Now [with current Rally1 cars] I think, depending on the situation we are in, it’s around two seconds per kilometre; sometimes it can be two and a half on tarmac, I think. But one second is the target.”
Missed opportunity to develop new technologies
While Neuville admits the new regulations are “interesting”, he feels the FIA has missed an opportunity for the WRC to provide a platform for manufacturers to develop new technologies that can trickle down to road cars.
“We [at Hyundai] are developing brake-by-wire, steering-by-wire and ratio variation on the steering, and working on active suspension; soon all the [road] cars will have active suspension," he added.
"We have to create this platform to develop active suspension on gravel, snow and tarmac. Why don’t we choose this opportunity together with the manufacturers to develop technologies to use the opportunities to teach engineers in real competition how to develop these things? We will support the manufacturers to develop new technologies and make them better, but at the moment we do the opposite.
"In Japan we had a meeting with 45 engineers from the Hyundai R&D centre, they asked us some questions but we told them 'we cannot help you as we don’t have any of those technologies in our cars'.
"These R&D centres are spending hundreds of millions developing technologies and it takes them a while as they don’t have the great opportunities we have. It is frustrating to see. It doesn’t need to be expensive to develop active suspension; I bought a new car two weeks ago and I have it in my road car."
