Few would love to see the qualifying stage return to the World Rally Championship more than Sébastien Ogier.
Introduced for the 2012 and ’13 seasons at all loose surface events, the fastest driver in qualifying – which used the route of shakedown – got to pick their road position for the opening day.
The European Rally Championship utilizes a similar system today, but there is no choice in road position. Instead, the fastest driver in qualifying on starts at the rear of the field on gravel and at the front on Tarmac.
Ogier has long been a supporter of the system as frequently throughout his career he has been labored with running first on the road on Friday and therefore sweeping the stages clear for his rivals.
In 2015 and ’16, the championship leader (frequently Ogier) was forced to run first on both Friday and Saturday – a move the now nine-time champion was particularly unhappy about.
The points leader (often Ogier) was handicapped with cleaning the road on two days during 2015 and '16
For the last decade, championship position has decided the running order for the first full day of competition with the rally standings reversed dicating the order for the final legs.
Ogier’s fresh argument to reintroduce qualifying is with an eye on 2027’s major technical regulations overhaul.
Next year, brand-new WRC27 cars will compete with Rally2 cars as well as Rally2 Kit cars, which the FIA hopes will have performance parity with the machines replacing today’s Rally1.
In theory, more cars should be capable of winning rallies from next season, but that also exposes the running order issue.
“I think it’s a difficult situation, a difficult topic, because the reality is, yeah, only Toyota [as a car manufacturer] have created a new car for the new regulations,” Ogier told DirtFish.
“I think everybody wants to see competition next year, therefore you need to find a way to have all the cars competing with the Toyotas. But more than the kits, first of all, it’s a balance of performance where it’s never easy to make everyone happy, basically.
“Then, secondly, in rally, think about starting order when you’re going to come on gravel. Imagine you have a Rally2 kit starting 25th on the loose gravel; they’re going to have a massive grip advantage and obviously going to be much quicker than the Rally1 [WRC27].
“So I think, yeah, if you go back to that, for me, you will need to reintroduce qualifying and find a way for a more fair starting order position. Because otherwise, it’s going to be a big mess and very difficult to manage this balance of performance between cars.”
Already, the driver running first on the road on hot, technical gravel events is severely punished – and that’s with a field of 10-12 Rally1 cars. The field could effectively be doubled (or more) in 2027.
“Everybody knows my opinion on that [qualifying],” Ogier added. “I mentioned that since 15 years. But qualifying for me was always a great thing.
“Unfortunately, we never went back to it, so I don’t know what’s going to happen on that side. To be honest, I’m not so focused on it because I haven’t decided yet what my future is. So I don’t know if there will still be a lot of rallying in my life or not. But still, I would be interested to see the sport developing in the best way possible.”
