The problem waiting to strike the WRC

Young blood.

It’s critical for any business. Critical for society even. And certainly critical in ensuring a healthy future for any sport.

If you’re a casual viewer of the World Rally Championship, then you could be forgiven for thinking that there’s no issue whatsoever with bringing through young drivers at rallying’s top level.

After all, at just 22 years old, Kalle Rovanperä became the youngest world champion in WRC history last season, and backed that up with another title success this year. Yes, he may be throttling back to a part-time campaign in 2024, but he’ll be back for a full assault on 2025 and beyond, so surely he is proof that youth is thriving and will continue to thrive in the championship?

Not exactly. At least not for me.

Here, as he often seems to be, Rovanperä is the exception that proves the rule. And that rule is: young drivers aren’t getting enough experience in Rally1 cars.

This creates a problem that’s waiting to strike the WRC in the future.

Fast-forward five years, and the WRC’s current major stars – Rovanperä aside – will be at or approaching retirement age; Ott Tänak will be 41, Thierry Neuville 40 and Elfyn Evans 39. While all three may choose to continue to compete full-time in the championship into their 40s, history would suggest that most drivers choose to hang up the helmet, or at least take a step back, at around that age.

The question then becomes who will replace them, and continue to give Rovanperä a run for his money and provide us with world-class entertainment in the process?

A look to the current WRC2 and Junior WRC ranks reveal a long list of potential candidates – Oliver Solberg, Emil Lindholm and Sami Pajari to name but a few – but one thing they all have in common is a lack of consistent Rally1 seat time to date (Solberg is the only one of the three to have driven one at all), with no clear path to obtaining that in the near future.

Why is that a problem for the WRC? Well, when messrs Tänak, Neuville and Evans decide to call time on their careers, no young driver can be expected to immediately fill their shoes and start winning rallies. Such is the vast gap between mastery of Rally2 and Rally1 machinery, these drivers will need years of consistent running to reach the level which is required to match Rovanperä.

It’s a point that’s been proven many times over, with the majority of rally winners from the WRC’s modern generation only taking their first world rally victory years after receiving their first taste of a top-class car.

Although Lappi and Rovanperä are the clear standouts here, both winning their first rallies less than two years after their first start, it’s only the exceptional Rovanperä who was able to then continue winning consistently from such an early point on in his career.

For everyone else it seems that around three years of consistent time in a top-class car is needed before they are ready to challenge at the front week-in week-out, if they also have the talent required to do so. And it stands to reason that the jump is even harder today than it was for a lot of the drivers listed above, as the Rally1 cars – with their big wings and hybrid systems – are an even bigger leap from the lower classes than ever before.

So that means our current crop of young drivers need to start getting full-time Rally1 deals in the next year or two if they are going to be ready to regularly win rallies five years down the road.

The clock, therefore, is ticking.

The championship needs at least a handful of capable young drivers to take the baton from the likes of Neuville, Tänak and Evans if it is to continue to deliver the compelling battles and season-long narratives that keep audiences hooked. A Rovanperä white-wash wouldn’t be good for anyone, especially since the sport’s biggest star has already signaled he may walk away from the sport if he’s not getting enough of a challenge.

Look across to Formula 1. While a young driver may currently be dominating in the shape of Max Verstappen, there is a healthy crop of young stars – including messrs Leclerc, Norris, Russel and Sainz – who are ready and able to challenge the Dutchman over the next decade or more if their cars are up to the task.

For the WRC at present, the same cannot be said.

The solution, on paper at least, is simple. The teams and the sport need to step up and invest in giving young drivers Rally1 opportunities.

So who will answer the call?

M-Sport is perhaps the team with the greatest history of developing young drivers in the WRC, and its latest project in Adrien Fourmaux may be about to pay off. But it shouldn’t fall to one team, which consistently requires additional budget from drivers and sponsors in order to survive, to develop a generation of Rally1-ready driving talent.

Hyundai has talked a good game about developing new talent, and has 2022 WRC2 champion Emil Lindholm on its books. But the way it discarded young Oliver Solberg last year was not a good sign that it is ready to put in the time and effort, or have the patience, that is required to let a developing driver learn and grow.

If Hyundai team principal Cyril Abiteboul is serious about his commitment to young talent, he needs to put his money where his mouth is in the near future. Otherwise, who will be ready to succeed Tänak and Neuville as team leaders when they step aside?

Toyota’s case is perhaps even more complex. Yes, it has the one young driver to rule all young drivers in Rovanperä, a double champion at just 23, but the recent news of his partial schedule for next year will surely have struck fear into the heart of team principal Jari-Matti Latvala. It’s a clear sign that when the young Finn says he may not stick around in the WRC for too long, he means business.

So the Japanese marque has as much need to develop young talent as anyone else, but so far it has not invested in any youth beyond the Japanese WRC Challenge Program which has unearthed Takamoto Katsuta. But if Rovanperä leaves, Ogier finally calls it a day and Evans retires, only Katsuta will remain, and he’s yet to prove his capability as a title challenger despite his impressive performance at last month’s Rally Japan.

Time is of the essence therefore if Toyota wants to bring through and shape a world-class talent in the same way it has done with its title-winning magician from Finland.

And what of the WRC promoter and the FIA? Where is their investment in the next generation?

It could be argued that they are doing plenty. The FIA Rally Star program seeks to find the next young talents from the gaming world, and has just awarded four graduates a place in next year’s Junior WRC. The European Rally Championship also offers a funded JWRC prize for the winner of its junior series, while the JWRC champion receives a leg-up into the WRC2 class with four funded rounds.

But all this funding only gets young drivers to the second division of world rallying, not its premier league. Why not offer the WRC2 champion a few funded drives in a Rally1 car? Isn’t the point of having an accessible global rallying ladder to help drivers reach the top of it? Otherwise, don’t we risk drivers having early career success, but then fading into obscurity?

These are the kind of questions that decision makers across the WRC and its stakeholders need to be asking themselves in the near future. We simply must invest in the next generation if the championship is to thrive in the future, and that can’t be a case of just chucking drivers into Rally1 seats when the current titans of the sport retire.

Without addressing the need for young blood right now, the WRC might end up on life support in the years to come.