The keyboards are no longer tapping as far as the World Rally Championship’s Super Sunday is concerned.
The outrage that consumed fans – and it has to be said, drivers too – swiftly after its introduction last year has certainly dissipated, largely thanks to the system tweak for 2025 no longer offering provisional Saturday points and instead just traditional rally ones.
But for a device designed to energize the final leg of a WRC round, is no conversation actually a good thing?
Perhaps I’m seeing things differently to you, but personally I can’t say I’ve really paid any meaningful attention to the Super Sunday standings on any of the four rounds so far this season.
Of course we’re all now used to it. Super Sunday is no longer a novelty, so you could argue there’s naturally less attention on it.
Maybe that’s a good thing, but I’m not so sure. I’d have been the first to argue bonus points are good for the Sunday show, but I’ve detected a worrying pattern that’s beginning to emerge.
Are Sundays becoming predictable again?
Drivers no longer cruise on Sundays, but has the spectacle actually improved in 2025?
Only once did the same driver win the overall event and Super Sunday last year (Thierry Neuville in Monte Carlo).
This year it’s already happened twice as much after just four events.
There’s obviously more to the Super Sunday narrative than who claims top points, but with the exception of Adrien Fourmaux’s all-out attack on Sunday points in Kenya (after he’d already retired from the event twice), we haven’t really witnessed any divergence in strategy to spice up the narrative.
Rally Islas Canarias was a particular low point, where the Super Sunday point scorers directly matched the overall top five on the rally. Kalle Rovanperä, Sébastien Ogier, Elfyn Evans, Takamoto Katsuta and Fourmaux were the five quickest and, errgo, took the points.
Where’s the spectacle?
Moreover, Monte Carlo and Sweden this year were both epic final day conclusions regardless of the allure of bonus points. The tire indecision as Fourmuax gambled on Sunday in Monte and Evans’ comeback against Katsuta in Sweden were thrilling crescendos that overruled any talk of Super Sunday. As for Kenya, it was Rovanperä’s retirement that stole the headlines.
Where’s the need for added spectacle?
The problem mainly is drivers and teams have now figured out both the relevance and the tactic required. Toyota found out to its cost last year the need to push on Sundays even with a strong rally lead, and now nobody will make that same mistake.
Super Sunday has unquestionably solved one problem in stopping drivers cruising, but is the show really any better off if we can already accurately guess who’s going to poach the points before a wheel has been turned?
The solution
The powerstage has been one of the greatest additions to the WRC since it became commonplace in 2011. In 15 seasons, only one change has ever been needed – opening it up to the top-five from 2017 as opposed to the-top three.
But now we have Super Sunday, I personally feel its significance has diminished. There’s something strange in all of Sunday’s stages being worth up to five points, and the same being true for just one of those stages.
The powerstage is potentially worth 10 points to a driver, which Barry believes is too much
Standing alone, both Super Sunday and the powerstage are sellable and worthwhile assets. But together they’re almost competing to take the shine off one another.
So why not keep the Super Sunday format, but ensure it’s not overlapping with the powerstage?
If I can indulge myself in utopia for a moment, I’d love to suggest reinventing WRC itineraries altogether. Forget Friday briefly; start the rally on Saturday and end it with a powerstage. Friday can then be devoted to some fan-friendly stages that aren’t ‘officially’ part of the rally (whether that’s super-specials or a concept similar to the Golden Stage which used to feature after Rally Cyprus) but are also worth championship points.
That way newcomers are potentially attracted to the WRC, a new TV product is born (think sprint race in Formula 1), drivers are still motivated to push with points on the line and there’s no confusion, or upset, about the weighting of Sunday’s leg in relation to overall championship points awarded.
Considering the world is never that simple, perhaps a more realistic solution would be to simply move the powerstage. After all, it never used to exclusively be the final stage of an event – let’s leave it to each event organizer to decide which stage on their itinerary they want to be worth championship points!
Should rally organizers be able to choose when to slot the powerstage into their itinerary?
There are the various broadcast deals to consider; currently each final stage of a WRC rally is held at 18 past the hour without fail to create a 1hr30 television program, of which the powerstage is a key sell. But does it have to be? A (relatively) short stage that crowns a rally winner, and Super Sunday victor, is hardly leaving people short-changed.
I’m not an organizer – of an event or a championship. Logistics are not really my bag, so I am not pretending to know more than those in charge.
But equally, as we all club together in a bid to widen rallying’s popularity and introduce it to a modern heyday, these are exactly the conversations and debates we all should be having.
As Thierry Neuville recently told DirtFish: “We need to stop taking only people from the past of WRC [in leadership roles], because the old days are over, you know? The young people, the ones we want to invest in for the sport, they don’t care about what has been popular in the past. We need to bring new ideas, something fresh, something out of the box, which maybe would, in our mind, not fit with the WRC, but which brings a change.”
Whether you agree or disagree with his statement, you can’t argue with the world champion’s sentiment. As the old motorsport adage goes: if you’re not moving forwards, you’re moving backwards.
So those are my thoughts on an aspect of a WRC event I feel could be refined. Let me know yours.
