In, out, in, out… The World Rally Championship has been a bit like the hokey cokey in recent months when it comes to the future of hybrid power.
First the FIA’s WRC Working Group recommended hybrid units be scrapped from downgraded Rally1 machinery to be introduced as soon as next year. This was despite supplier Compact Dynamics having a contract in place for 2025 and 2026.
Unhappy at the intended five-year homologation cycle being shortened, Toyota, Hyundai and M-Sport Ford collectively wrote to the FIA requesting that current Rally1 regulations remain in place next year.
The FIA then committed to retain the existing technical regs until the end of 2026.
More recently, it emerged that hybrid power may yet be dropped next year as teams railed against increased costs arising from more frequent rebuilds of the systems, with simple resets outlawed.
But eight-time world champion Sébastien Ogier reckons the regular about-turns, akin to something sung about by children in kindergarten, is doing the WRC no favors.
“I would like to see hybrid stay as it has been planned like this and developed like this,” said Ogier. “So it’s a bit of a weird last-minute change to have that [scrapped], for me.”
Ogier suggested the uncertainty and lack of consistency are symptomatic of wider issues within the WRC.
“Like often, if that happens, this championship is missing consistency,” he continued. “It’s hard to understand why now, last minute… OK, there is a cost issue involved.
Ogier believes mixed messages are being sent about hybrid
“But probably I would try more to push with the supplier to make some kind of improvement on that and be able to maybe repair those hybrid units which have a little shock sometimes, and which are not much probably – and try to somehow reduce the bill at the end for the teams and [allow] it to carry on.
“Because I don’t know, what is the message now? Like OK, we are hybrid, but finally we don’t have it anymore.
“And again, like I say, it’s just like [being] not prepared – we have so limited testing for next year now and you have to go for a quite different car, maybe, if that change is happening.”
