The global championship was affected by the financial crisis

World Rally Championship

The World Rally Championship starts today in Ireland. Formally, this is the second most prestigious auto racing series after Formula 1. But the financial crisis affected it in such a way that the status of the rally championship, which was invariably won by the Frenchman Sebastien Lob in a Citroen for five previous seasons, has become not very clear today.

The fact that something is wrong with the World Rally Championship could be noticed even by a person who does not follow the events around it very closely, simply by looking at the championship calendar and discovering, for example, that it does not include the famous Monte Carlo Rally, which is in season traditionally opened since 1973. Where is it? It turns out that in the alternative, much cheaper Intercontinental Rally Challenge series. And instead of the Monte Carlo Rally, the championship opens with an Irish stage, which has appeared in it rarely before.

Or here's another observation. Last year the world championship consisted of 15 stages, despite the fact that the International Motor Sports Federation (FIA) did not object to their increase at all. Now there are only 12 of them.

The series regulations have also changed. The amount of time for tests for teams during the season has been reduced, and the number of mechanics who are allowed to be in the service area during a stage has been reduced from a dozen to eight. These and other measures aimed at saving costs are the anti-crisis package of the World Cup organizers. Maybe it will help him survive. And now, apparently, we are talking about survival - in light of the events that took place at the end of last year.

Then two top teams – Subaru and Suzuki – announced that they were leaving the world championship. The automakers that sponsor them believed that in the crisis, rally “stables” were turning into completely non-core assets. For Formula 1, the loss of a couple of teams would be an unpleasant event. For the World Rally Championship, where truly strong “stables” are few and far between, this is akin to a disaster. Moreover, along with Subaru and Suzuki, several great pilots also left it - for example, the Finn Toni Gardemeister and the Belgian Francois Duval, and the ex-world champion Norwegian Petter Solberg will perform on a truncated program, skipping some stages.

It's good that the two strongest factory teams - Citroen and Ford - still remain. Without them, the championship would lose all meaning. And so, in general, the intrigue is not much different from last year, when the stages were won exclusively by these two “stables”. Moreover, the new rally calendar seems to have sharpened it a little.

In the previous five seasons, Sebastien Lob won the world title. Moreover, his advantage over his rivals, as a rule, was overwhelming. Last season, Lob, for example, took 11 stages. Answering the question what goal he sets for himself now, the Frenchman did not begin to wander into thoughts, but simply confirmed the obvious: “The goal is to win a sixth title.” We can only assume that it will be a little more difficult for him to do this than before.

As you know, Sebastien Lob looks especially great on the asphalt. On it, he is essentially invincible. But in the truncated calendar of stages that are held on this surface, there are only two - Irish and Catalan. In the rest, Ford is competitive.

And then, we must assume that this year the Finnish Ford drivers will look more confident than in 2008. Jari-Matti Latvala is very young and constantly improving. It seems that 28-year-old Mikko Hirvonen cannot be classified as a “green” racer. But here we must take into account that in the 2008 championship, in which he finished immediately after Lob, he was, in a sense, a debutant. The fact is that before this, Hirvonen was the co-pilot of Ford (the role of prima belonged to the retired Marcus Grönholm). So, the first one has a completely different psychological load, and not everyone is immediately able to cope with it. So it is not surprising that Hirvonen, commenting on his chances in the upcoming championship, said that last year taught him a lot and he is ready to fight Lob.

Alexey Kommersant-Dospehov

Rally drivers will follow a truncated program