|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
 |
 |
| |
What is WRC?
Preparations for the
hard-fought season begin months before the first
rally. The governing body, the FIA approves routes,
stages and final locations of the 16 rallies around
the world, and passes on a copy of the proposals to
the manufacturers.
Each rally must allow three days for the
reconnaissance (or recce), one day for technical
checks (or scrutineering) and three days for
competition. The rally is divided into three legs,
and typically has between 15 and 25 special stages.
The manufacturer-backed factory teams will enter two
or three cars each, and arrive on location weeks
before the start of a rally for on-site preparation.
The competing World Rally Cars are seeded and start
the event according to their ranking, with the
leader of the drivers' championship setting off
first. Often there are up to 90 cars taking part -
the rest of the field made up of the Junior World
Championship (smaller, lower-powered cars for
younger drivers), or the Production Car World Rally
Championship and private teams.
The Recce
Driver and co-driver familiarise themselves with the
stages before the start of the event. They drive the
leg in a standard road-car (fitted with extra safety
equipment) in the three days preceding the rally. It
is here that the co-driver jots down detailed pace
notes for use on the stage itself.
The Stages
The special stages are the competitive sections of
the rally - where the drivers and co-driver drive as
fast as possible to achieve the quickest time. They
take place on private roads or public roads, which
are closed to the general public while the rally is
in progress. A typical rally will have about 25
special stages over three days. The stages are
linked by public roads - called road sections - on
which competitors must obey all local traffic laws.
Each day contains about 400km of driving - a third
of which are the competitive special stages. Stages
vary in length from five to 60kms, with the cars'
times being recorded after each stage to the tenth
of a second.
The Clock
Forget about 'first across the line'. WRC cars don't
race directly against each other. They compete
against the toughest opponent of all - time. Cars
start at one or two minute intervals, racing against
the clock, their times monitored and entered into
the FIA computer. Unless they run into trouble,
rivals rarely see each other during a stage. At the
end of an event, the driver who's taken the least
amount of time to complete all the stages is the
winner.
The Points
Results achieved during each of the 16 rallies count
towards the two FIA world championships - one for
the drivers and one for the manufacturers. Drivers
get 10 points for coming first, eight points for
second place, six points for third, five points for
fourth, four for fifth, three for sixth, two for
seventh and one for eighth. A manufacturer can add
up the points tally from two nominated cars.
The
Time
Controls
A rally itinerary is governed by a strict timetable.
Drivers get time penalties for being late (or early!)
to clock in to the start of the special stage and at
the entry and exit of service parks. Late arrival at
these controls is typically penalised with 10
seconds on every minute over and is added to the
overall time of the driver. Drivers can be excluded
from a rally if they are 15 minutes late for a time
control, 30 minutes late for a leg or 60 minutes for
an entire rally.
The
Service
Parks
After each group of stages is completed, the cars
can visit a designated service park where repairs
may be carried out by the teams under strict
supervision during a 20-minute time period. At the
end of each day the crews are allowed a longer 45-minute
period to work on the cars before they are locked
away in the guarded 'parc fermé' until the following
morning's restart. Crews are punished with time
penalties for exceeding these alloted times. |
| |
The World Rally Cars
World Rally Cars are not ordinary cars. Far from it.
They are the super-heroes of cars, capable of
extraordinary feats. Cars with enough horse power
under their bonnets to literally fly round the most
punishing terrains in the world and then stop in a
second.
Sure, they look pretty similar to the car you hired
on holiday last year, but underneath that familiar
exterior lies £400,000 of high-tension steel, carbon
fibre and titanium packed with the most
sophisticated technological hardware available. They
have 2.0 litre turbo engines that produce over
300bhp, 6 speed gearboxes and 4-wheel drive. The
extensive safety measures include a 'roll cage',
welded into the car to protect driver and navigator
in case of an accident.
They're familiar because the FIA stipulates that
every World Rally Car must originate from its
fourseater road-car and be available to the general
public (so at least 25,000 of them must have been
built). But that's where the similarities end...Building
a World Rally Car
To make it rally-fit, the car has to undergo a World
Rally Championship makeover. Teams start by
stripping it down to its very barest of essentials,
its panels, and then work up from this blank
metallic canvas. Usually, it will take 100s of back-wrenching
man-hours just to turn these bare panels into a
chassis on which the World Rally Car can be built.
And this is no normal chassis. It's 2-3 times more
rigid than a normal road car and comes complete with
an ultra-stiff roll-cage and acres of safety tubing
(40m if laid out fully).
The car starts life looking like its suburban
counterpart, but teams are allowed to re-shape the
noses and add a rear 'wing'. The aerodynamics at the
front produce less drag and the 'wing' (like an
aircraft wing, only upside down) at the back
generates a down-force which helps the car balance
on the road.
All this technology requires a huge investment of
time. It takes six mechanics working flat-out for
three weeks to create a World Rally Car. |
|
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Add To Favorites
