World Rallycross Championship 2016

[crossfades]

Read and heard a very, very, very interesting rumor that M-Sport will have a two-car team for WRX next year and Ken Block will be driving one of the Fiestas. The other driver has not been decided yet. Could they be a contender for the manufacture and driver title?

[J.U.]

Originally Posted by crossfades

Read and heard a very, very, very interesting rumor that M-Sport will have a two-car team for WRX next year and Ken Block will be driving one of the Fiestas. The other driver has not been decided yet. Could they be a contender for the manufacture and driver title?

Could Petter Solberg be the second driver? Then Monster would still be bis sponsor . That would be the end for Liam Doran...

[tbtstt]

Originally Posted by crossfades

Read and heard a very, very, very interesting rumor that M-Sport will have a two-car team for WRX next year and Ken Block will be driving one of the Fiestas. The other driver has not been decided yet. Could they be a contender for the manufacture and driver title?

I know not many on here rate him, but seeing Block in the World Championship would be phenomenal. He is wasted in the GRC and he has looked very competitive in the World rounds he has done.

Originally Posted by J.U.

Could Petter Solberg be the second driver? Then Monster would still be bis sponsor . That would be the end for Liam Doran...

Apparently (and I have heard this third hand, so I'm not that confident!), but Solberg in a VW was the rumour doing the rounds at RallyGB.

Perhaps a coincidence, but Liam Doran shared a status from M-Sport today. Could he be the second driver?...

[J.U.]

Originally Posted by tbtstt

Apparently (and I have heard this third hand, so I'm not that confident!), but Solberg in a VW was the rumour doing the rounds at RallyGB.

Perhaps a coincidence, but Liam Doran shared a status from M-Sport today. Could he be the second driver?...

Block and Doran in the same team - interesting combination . For Doran it would be definetly good to get a new car. His DS3 seems to be jinxed.
And Solberg could join Heikkinen at Marklund or Kristoffersson at Team Sweden. I think, the KMS-Polo is the better one, but maybe that´s just because the driver is better .

[crossfades]

Block and Doran would make a really good "Monster" team combined. As for Solberg I probably believe that he would rather join Marklund as they are officially sponsored by Volkswagen.

On the other hand though if Solberg would join a team he will not be able to do things however he wants. Testing an evening at 21.00 or constantly changing the car setup a team would not be so happy about I think.

[chunder]

Looking at it logically if yuou were Monster who would you back? Doran or the bloke that wins the championship who shares the same sponsor?

No brainer surely.

Petter has history with Msport, drive for them a few years ago so would likely be the best man, and could probably bring backing, unlike Doran who is surely not a good bet for any sponsor, he cant pull in anywhere near as much social media as Petter.

But stranger things have happened.

[J.U.]

Originally Posted by chunder

Looking at it logically if yuou were Monster who would you back? Doran or the bloke that wins the championship who shares the same sponsor?

I´m suprised, too. Since the start of World RX Liam didn´t delivered anything good and Monster is still his sponsor. What´s the strategy of the marketing section?

[chunder]

Energy drink marketing is invariably about image, especially Monster.

Red Bull are the ones that tend to get involved with winning teams mainly. Look at Crutchlow, he doesn't win, but is funny, fairly good. Doran has a personality, an image of a tough guy, true or not it is an image.

But theya re getting more involved with winners too, Mercedes F1, Yamaha MotoGP, Woffinden, McGuiness etc.

Monster are about presence and lets' face it when you sponsor the series and the best driver, it is largely unnecessary to have a guy in your team who has won nothing and never looked like winning anything all year, but he has been with them a long time, it was noticeable though that the car was nowhere near as bedecked this year as it has been before.

He does get involved in a lot of promotional events, but one of those I saw was a total disaster when the car dumped fuel on the track meaning a loss of several minutes to clean up after a demo run, hardly great PR.

[NaBUru38]

Originally Posted by chunder

Looking at it logically if yuou were Monster who would you back? Doran or the bloke that wins the championship who shares the same sponsor?

Yes, and that means that Solberg is more expensive than Doran.

I guess that Volkswagen might have more money than Monster to pay a former world rally driver. Now, if it's Ford paying the bills, it's another story.

[bigdick1977]

Is there any reason why Monster wouldn't sponsor both? Red Bull are involved in all sorts (EKS, Hansen, Topi). Maybe they will support both.

[chunder]

My point and those of others really is, are they getting value with Doran?

Solberg is a showman, is great with the media and fans and is also up front. Liam is too, to a certain extent but in a different way.

They tend to sponsor winners, and Liam has not done much winning, not even close really in the last couple of years, other than get involved in a PR suicide at his home track!

He seems to have a good relationship with Monster for some reason, and that probably means more than anything else. But I expect that is family related aswell as pure racing as the series is Monster backed, the drift cars are often at meetings and they are Monster backed, sister is a hug drift fan and is involved in PR and marketing is she not?

[FIRE]

Of course we must not forget at the time Doran signed a long term deal with Monster he was a frontrunner in ERC and it looked like he would become one of the stars.

[crossfades]

Originally Posted by FIRE

Of course we must not forget at the time Doran signed a long term deal with Monster he was a frontrunner in ERC and it looked like he would become one of the stars.

He signed a three-year deal in 2011 right before the ERC round in Portugal. Whatever deal he made after that I have no idea of.

[tbtstt]

World and European Championship heats will be run separately in 2016:

http://www.fiaworldrallycross.com/ar...rx-and-euro-rx

[chunder]

Some more great news for the WRX series.

I hear that Franciacorta circuit has gone bust or the owner has been arrested or something.

Leaves them clear I suppose to have a round in I dont know.. perhaps Syria?

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by tbtstt

World and European Championship heats will be run separately in 2016:

http://www.fiaworldrallycross.com/ar...rx-and-euro-rx

What do we think about this?

I don't like it. Separate finals ok but separate heats? To see ERX drivers compete against WRX regulars is one of things I like of current RX.

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by chunder

Some more great news for the WRX series.

I hear that Franciacorta circuit has gone bust or the owner has been arrested or something.

Leaves them clear I suppose to have a round in I dont know.. perhaps Syria?

I am surprised we did not have an event in Kazan, Tatarstan. Home of Timur Timurzyanov and a president with autocross background.

[crossfades]

The WRX drivers and teams wanted to split from the Euro RX drivers, I guess they did not want them to risk their own chances.

It will be a bit odd going to Höljes and watching two split Supercar championships for the first time ever. If a driver won in Höljes before it would be a great victory conquering Sweden that usually has a good field of drivers, now it will be like winning half of the race. I hope though that this will mean an "unlimited" field of drivers unlike last year when only 35 drivers were allowed to race.

[Hickey]

To be honest, I can't see it making much difference. There was maybe only Rustad, Veiby and a handful of wildcards who would have qualified for the WRX semi finals the gulf in class was pretty huge. I can see why the WRX drivers requested it to stop getting held up by slower cars, etc. It's a bit of a shame to be creating a bigger divide between the two but I don't think this will be a major change to the spectacle. More wildcard entries might enter the WRX to test themselves against the big boys. Might be bad news for ERX

[ebby]

Split Euro and World heats in 2016 then. Would have liked a European championship with a few more rounds in

[chunder]

It is what it is, the end of ERC as we know it. Thank God actually, let's hope the renaissance comes soon as they will soon get fed up of being the poor relation as the other classes have. Sadly there is no real effort being made by IMG to look after them so rwd and S16000 is slowly dying as I knew they would.

The so called little teams getting more and more distance from the rest of the world.

And you know what that means for the ERC teams, separating them in the heats means not having to cover them on tv as they do now. Just like the S1600 and rwd classes, you just chuck them on your social media channel 3 months after the event so after the series has moved on the people paying their fees to be in the series get their miniscule coverage. What a great deal for them.

Bless the top teams getting held up by slower cars, what a hard life.

Never seen so much drivel in my life.

[tbtstt]

Interesting post from ERC24 on Facebook...

Originally Posted by ERC24 Facebook

The grapevine has it...

...not the first time there has been a Loeb/rallycross rumour, but with Loeb out of the WTCC and now a Peugeot driver, is there a possibility he will appear at Peugeot-Hansen?

[crossfades]

Originally Posted by tbtstt

...not the first time there has been a Loeb/rallycross rumour, but with Loeb out of the WTCC and now a Peugeot driver, is there a possibility he will appear at Peugeot-Hansen?

I hope so, would be very fun at least. Would be a dream if he and Hirvonen (one can hope, right?) raced at the same event

[tbtstt]

Originally Posted by crossfades

I hope so, would be very fun at least. Would be a dream if he and Hirvonen (one can hope, right?) raced at the same event

Yeah, it would be great to see Hirvonen give rallycross a go. I still desperately want Gronholm to return to rallycross, though it seems that will never happen now.

Still, if all the rumours thus far turn out to be true we might have Solberg, Loeb, Block and Galli as Championship regulars: that could make for a pretty interesting season!

[ebby]

I'd like to see Albatec return to the WorldRX stage, Grosset-Janin is capable although they'd need a better second driver. Surely Rustad will get a WorldRX drive in 2016?