WRC Promoter is hoping to make live radio communications between teams and drivers a possibility as early as next year, with the intention of broadcasting them live on television in a similar manner to Formula 1.
Pit-to-car radio communication is heavily used in professional circuit racing, with all communications between teams and drivers available in Formula 1 through the series’ F1TV platform and select trio messages played on the global feed for broadcasters around the world.
Given the popularity and prevalence of these radio messages among F1 fans, WRC is now hoping to replicate something similar itself and will begin work with a specialist consultant from next month’s Rally Portugal to investigate further.
There's not much for engineers to do between services – that could change if WRC Promoter's new concept comes to fruition, with real-time telemetry made available to teams
Simon Larkin, event director at WRC Promoter, said: “That broader teamwork element is something that I think we can work on better. We can bring out more characters; even the relationship between the driver and their engineer is something that we’re missing that other sports are better at.
“We have a new concept for next year that we’re working on with the teams and the manufacturers for more data out of the cars, more live interaction between the crews and their teams. At the moment, my rental car has better connectivity than these very expensive rally cars.”
Explaining further, Larkin specifically cited F1, and the relationship between Max Verstappen and his race engineer Gianpiero Lambaise that occasionally strays into argument territory mid-race.
“You know what I like very much in Formula 1? It’s who has the power,” added Larkin. “When Verstappen is scoring his 150th win and he’s checking with his engineer, it is funny with Lambiase, this discussion. We need stuff like that.
“That interaction between a driver and their engineer on the road sections discussing this, discussing that is interesting for us all. It’s a good start.”
This proposal does not currently have the agreement of the manufacturers. WRC Promoter plans to offer the Rally1 teams the ability to access live telemetry in exchange for being able to broadcast radio communications, which would mark a step forward from the current system of downloading data from cars in the service park.
“We think the quid pro quo that we can offer to the teams is providing them with more live data, like oil pressure, water pressure, the tire pressure monitoring system,” Larkin said. “There are a lot of things that sometimes go wrong with these cars that maybe could have been avoided that could keep them in the rally even, if they have the ability to take different actions during a stage, during a road section, all these sorts of things.
“There’s a better technological story that we can tell about these cars and what goes into them. We can do more live. Each car has a number of engineers attached to it; it waves it off at 7:30 in the morning and they don’t have any data out of the car until they plug a USB stick into it at service. We can be better than that. And I also think that can help with storytelling.”
