Why The WRC Has So Much To Offer

I have a confession. I love the WRC. I think the driving style required to be quick simply spectacular as the cars crackle, pop and spew gravel everywhere. Then, if there is a crash, it is always mind blowing. But here's the thing. The sport is in it's darkest hours right now.

Kind Of Symbolic Really

After the loss of a promoter at the start of the year (thanks to a Russian "billionaire" who actually lacked the billions needed to be a billionaire and was done for fraud) the WRC had no real TV coverage, no one running the website and no one to find sponsorship for the series. The coverage has continued, but more of a goodwill gesture as the TV reports are cobbled together at the last minute on a shoe string budget and WRC.com is being run by loyal rallying journalists. Then just two weeks ago, Nokia announced they will be taking their title sponsorship ("WRC - Powered by Nokia") elsewhere.

It gets worse. With no promoter, the FIA is in charge of organising the events, coverage and the future event calendar. North One Sport used to give rally organisers money for each round. Theory being, the organisers go through a lot of effort and money to set up the event, but then NOS contributed to get the TV rights. Now, the FIA want organisers to set up the events and then pay them for the right to be on TV. Consequently, not one event has signed the agreement for 2013. Technically as it stand right now, there isn't a WRC next year. (The official wrc.com website currently lists a calendar as a nice PR push, but they don't tell that no one has signed up to run the events!)

Not only that, but some guy called Sebastian Loeb has managed to make this incredible sport boring and predictable. Well, that statement is perhaps a bit harsh. You can't knock the man for being a literal driving god. But ever since his spectacular WRC début in 2001, the sport has been turned upside down. In his very first full season, 2003, he finished a close runner up to the champion Petter Solberg. Since then he has won every single title. Yup, that's 2004, 2005, 2006 (despite being in a semi-works car), 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. There isn't a record left standing that doesn't now have his name attached to it. Just when you think someone in a Ford (be that Solberg, Latvala, Gronholm or Hirvonen) gets close to either winning a rally or a championship, the magical Loeb manages to pull it out of the bag with a simple Gallic shrug.

A national sporting hero in France (not only a French champion, but in a French car) and no doubt at all, the best driver the series has ever seen, if he were to retire at the end of 2012 then the end of the WRC may not be so close. Just imagine what it would be like without him. Looking at this years rallies and those from previous seasons, there have been titanic scraps for the other podium positions. Now imagine those battles being for 1st. We would have had more winners and different champions. There would be a better chance to win (more like the early 00's where any of 6/8 drivers could win each rally) and then surely more incentive for manufactures to enter. Loeb recently expressed a nonplussed attitude to longer rally distances recently introduced, set up his own endurance LeMans team and last month convincingly won a Porsche Carrera Cup race around Pau. So perhaps leaving the World Rally Championship at the end of this season is a real possibility.

Come On, This Needs To Happen

Maybe, just maybe if a promoter is found for next year and if Loeb retires, BMW will do the right thing and continue their Mini programme. It probably won't happen, but it would be nice. Also, this season hasn't been helped by Ford's continued bad luck and the only man who could seriously not just challenge, but beat hands down, Loeb, is not competing. Sebastian Ogier taking a year out to develop the new VW Polo WRC has been a great loss. Rumours cropped up recently when ex WRC champion Miki Biasion tweeted that Lancia could return in 2013. There is a very slim chance that a turbo engine could be stuck in the Proton S2000 car. But nother seem extremely slim.

You get the impression that thanks to French domination and lack of poor leadership, a series with such massive potential has been baulked. It may be on the brink, be the WRC is really worth saving.