World Rally Championship manufacturer teams will begin testing their 2022 Rally1 cars from January next year.
DirtFish understands Compact Dynamics – which was announced as the series’ hybrid supplier on Tuesday – is required to deliver batteries and powertrains to the WRC’s three factory teams by the end of this year.
While Toyota, M-Sport and Hyundai will have to wait until the end of this year to get their hands on the physical parts for hybrid, every other aspect of their cars, including revised transmission and suspension set-ups, will be running through this season.
M-Sport team principal Richard Millener told DirtFish: “We’ll have 12 months. OK, 12 months is nice, but there’s still an awful lot to do in those 12 months.
“It’s not just a case of dropping the hybrid in, connecting it up and off we go. I’d say by the time we get to the end of this year, we could have 40% of the work done towards 2022 – which leaves plenty to do next season.
“Beyond the initial testing, we’ve got fault-finding and then re-working to do. It’s a tight deadline, particularly when the original timeline showed 15 or 16 months for this work.
“But, we’ll get it done and the really positive thing here is that all the teams are working together now. We’re all pulling in the same direction.”
Asked about Tuesday’s hybrid detail, Toyota Gazoo Racing technical director Tom Fowler said: “It’s good the decision has been made and any further debate over whether this is the right or wrong decision is pointless – but I think it’s fair to say we don’t know so much about Compact Dynamics.
“Right now we can knuckle down and do something proactive towards 2022. As soon as it comes out of the hands of other people you feel more comfortable that you can get involved and make it happen.”
Millener said he could understand the questions about Compact Dynamics, but added that the decision had come from the governing body of global motorsport.
“The FIA has run this tender process, installing all the necessary KPIs and in the full understanding of what’s needed to meet the demands of the championship and 2022,” he said. “What we have here is a big step towards 2022 and we need to work from that.
“I’ve said before that it would be great to see everybody really pushing on from here during this time. Once we come out the other side of coronavirus, we’re going to go back to dividing time between running a team on a day-to-day basis and working on the 2022 car.
“Right now we don’t need to split those resources and we have to focus on the new car. Today’s news helps us do that.”
