WRC Promoter officials met with David Richards at Prodrive headquarters on Wednesday to discuss the potential for a return of the British giant to the sport’s top-flight.
Prodrive and Subaru dominated the WRC through the mid-1990s, securing a hat-trick of manufacturer titles from 1995-1997 and the drivers’ crown for Colin McRae in ’95. Richard Burns and Petter Solberg secured their titles at the wheel of Prodrive Subarus in 2001 and 2003 respectively.
While Subaru departed the WRC at the end of 2008, Prodrive returned with a Mini program three years later.
However the Banbury-based firm has been absent from the WRC since 2012, something Richards told DirtFish he would be keen to change.
WRC Promoter’s CEO Éric Boullier and COO Julien Vial were in Prodrive through Wednesday, where Richards had a packed agenda for an expected three-hour meeting.
“We need to be convinced that they’re taking the right approach and that the investment will be there in the championship,” Richards told DirtFish. “We have only so many resources we can apply to different championships and different things we’re doing, [but] I would like to see us back in the World Rally Championship.
Prodrive ran Subaru's WRC program for years; last appearing in 2012 with Mini
“We’ve done all the technical assessments [of the new technical regulations]. We’ve done all the background work. We know what it will cost us to do it. We know how we go about it. And this is an interesting discussion to find out if we’re all aligned.”
Richards offers a unique insight into the series, having managed Subaru’s success before turning his hand to the promotion of the WRC when he purchased the commercial rights off Bernie Ecclestone for an estimated $50m in 2000.
“The real challenge for him [Boullier] as the promoter is to re-engage with the media and the television channels around the world,” Richard added. “The mistake that Red Bull made in the latter years was purely talking to the converted. That’s an easy target: selling subscriptions to people who love rallying? Great. It’ll be a quietly diminishing marketplace.
“What we’ve got to do is open it up to the public at large and we’ve got to engage with the public and not hide away. Personally one of the discussions I’ll be suggesting is going back to some more linear routes, having a time control in the middle of town centers, getting back among the people instead of hiding ourselves away in the forests.
“It’s the most spectacular form of motorsport ever. And we don’t see it anywhere. And we’ve got to stop it from getting away. Now, unfortunately, that’s going to take some investment because they’re going to have to make that material available to people, online and to the TV channels just build the audience again.”
Richards added that focus had to be placed on the next generation of fans as part of a wider WRC Promoter plan.
“You’ve got to capture the audience with young people, the computer games that were so popular in the past,” he added. “I have an idea which I tried 20 years ago – unfortunately way before it was possible to do it – and that’s real-time, virtual participation in events.
“For example, you could be a fan anywhere in the world and you sign up for Monte Carlo. You turn up at the start of the first stage alongside everybody else, you’re driving the same car with the same tires and the same conditions. You then have a virtual winner alongside the real winner. Imagine how that would open up the sport to a new generation of participants.”
