Scanning through the proposed 2027 technical regulations outline document, it seemed at first glance as if rallying’s stakeholders had finally come to their senses.
An affordable cost cap for the next generation of top level vehicles? Great. Simpler suspension to aid hitting that target? A sensible solution. We’d tried extreme cars with complicated aerodynamics and a kick up the backside from 80 bonus horsepower of hybrid boost – which, while looking and sounding spectacular, had left the World Rally Championship one manufacturer down and on the precipice of losing more with spiralling costs.
Rally1’s replacement was desperately needed. I’ve always struggled to understand anyone who, looking at the current state of affairs, thinks simplification to reduce costs is a bad thing if it means slightly slower cars.
Dani Sordo is at the tail end of his front-line WRC career. A part-timer since the late 2010s, his role at Hyundai was reduced to only three events this year. It remains unclear whether he’ll be back at all next season. There isn’t so much at stake for him when it comes to the 2027 WRC technical regulations. But he has an opinion anyway – and a rather unsurprising one.
“It’s difficult to say something but of course, if you put the Rally2-spec engine [in a top-level car], I think you will lose a lot of spectators.
“When you see a Rally2 on the stage, it’s like…” he trails off, trying to find the right words.
“It’s nice but it’s not…”
He stalls again. This time it’s about making sure he’s not too harsh. After all, Hyundai also has a Rally2-spec i20 in its stable.
“I think at one point they want everybody to drive with a Rally2 car.”
Is that a bad thing? Certain quarters have been crying out for this as the ultimate solution for years now. It’s clear that the current set of regulations are not sustainable. But Monza Rally Show last week gave pause for thought – do we risk going too far in the other direction?
Sordo’s half-finished thoughts have some merit. And he got the chance to demonstrate those points first-hand. With no recce or pacenotes, he strapped himself into the i20 N Rally1 – now shod of the hybrid unit that had both figuratively and literally weighed it down for the past three seasons – and launched it onto the historic Monza circuit.
He had a slight handicap: there was no Cándido Carrera alongside him. He had to put up with me in the co-drivers’ seat instead.
Alasdair got to experience the thrill of Rally1 alongside Sordo at Monza
A few hours earlier I’d climbed the Monza banking. As anyone who’s been there knows, it’s sufficiently steep that descending after you’ve climbed to the top is a treacherous affair. Yet blasting down it at over 100mph felt ridiculously straightforward aboard the Rally1 car. And this wasn’t Dani going for a cruise, as his insistence for finding out if he’d beaten the car ahead, Jari-Matti Latvala’s GR Yaris Rally1, demonstrated.
Transitioning from the new circuit to old, there’s a crest ahead of a dip. I’m used to feeling a moment of lightness as gravity kicks in and puts the car back onto the ground on these sorts of transitions. But the downforce the Rally1 car generates meant that sensation never came: we were simply pushed onto to the other side of the dip in an instant. Despite the track being green – we were only the second car through on the first run of the Monza weekend – everything felt stable as Dani barrelled the i20 towards the first mid-oval chicane and seamlessly slipped it between the hay bales.
I can see why the drivers are usually the first to complain whenever making cars simpler and more cost-effective is on the agenda. Why would you want to give this up? Robbing a driver of downforce points and horsepower feels like ripping energy directly out of your soul to never get it back. How can you be satisfied knowing that feeling is gone and will never come back?
The other headache Rally1’s demise will probably bring is star power – not of the drivers but the cars themselves. Our problem is getting the spectacle of these things to click with people – because once they get it, they’re hooked. Entranced, even.
Rally1 cars were the star attraction, gazumping the Rally2 machines, at Monza
It was a surreal experience strolling down the Monza pitlane in Hyundai overalls, helmet in hand, as the team’s marketing specialist Manuel escorted me to the best seat in the house. After reaching the i20 N Rally1 parked among a long line of Rally2 cars and squeezing past an amassed audience, a request for a selfie from one of the bystanders soon followed.
Who, me? I’m not the driver or co-driver mate! Surely I don’t look Spanish? Err… OK then.
Depending on the circumstances, it’s both a strength and weakness that I gravitate towards being a cold-hearted pragmatist much of the time. I lean towards the objective over the subjective. When the outline of the ’27 tech regs landed while I sat in a meeting room in front of my laptop, my initial reaction was: great, finally. Some common sense. We have a fighting chance to get this ship pointed in the direction and setting sail again.
It’s still early days and we’ll need to digest the consequences of Wednesday’s World Motor Sport Council decision to fully rationalize where we all stand. But it’s like Cyril Abiteboul pointed out when on Safari Rally Kenya last year, when he’d sat in the same place I’d been in Monza: “It’s something that you need to experience. You can’t really show it. You need to be in it.”
Cyril Abiteboul's thoughts after riding in a Rally1 car earlier this year speak volumes
When wandering around the Monza service park, even those who weren’t as fortunate as I seemed to get it anyway. Four-time Italian champion Andrea Crugnola, WRC2 champ Sami Pajari and ERC double champion Hayden Paddon were all in town and battling for victory for three days. Until Sunday afternoon the Rally1 drivers were only there for show. But every time the mechanics went to fire up the cars – whether an i20, a Yaris or a Puma – gaggles of fans would rapidly amass.
Part of me goes into spreadsheet mode and says none of this is sustainable. That we just need to forget about all this and accept that slower, cheaper cars are the only way. Continuing as we were clearly doesn’t work.
But a Rally1 career flying down the Monza banking with the pinpoint accuracy and rapid velocity of a homing missile is a reminder that we can’t risk being entirely beholden to pragmatism either.
