Ogier’s contemporary argument to reintroduce WRC qualifying – DirtFish

“Then, secondly, in rally, think about starting order when you’re going to come on gravel. Imagine you have a Rally2 kit starting 25th on the loose gravel; they’re going to have a massive grip advantage and obviously going to be much quicker than the Rally1 [WRC27].

“So I think, yeah, if you go back to that, for me, you will need to reintroduce qualifying and find a way for a more fair starting order position. Because otherwise, it’s going to be a big mess and very difficult to manage this balance of performance between cars.”

Already, the driving force operating first on the highway on scorching, technical gravel occasions is severely punished – and that’s with a discipline of 10-12 Rally1 vehicles. The discipline might successfully be doubled (or extra) in 2027.

“Everybody knows my opinion on that [qualifying],” Ogier added. “I mentioned that since 15 years. But qualifying for me was always a great thing.

“Unfortunately, we never went back to it, so I don’t know what’s going to happen on that side. To be honest, I’m not so focused on it because I haven’t decided yet what my future is. So I don’t know if there will still be a lot of rallying in my life or not. But still, I would be interested to see the sport developing in the best way possible.”