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Figured I would make a thread as there was on the past years.

It looks to be shaping up for a Loeb vs. Hirvonen contest for the Driver's Championship again, and Citroen vs. Ford for the constructors' title ( of course since there are no other manufacturer's entered )

There are only 3 returning teams from last year:

Citroën Total World Rally Team ( Loeb / Sordo/ Citroen C4 ),
BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team ( Hirvonen / Latvala / Ford Focus ) and the
Citroën Junior Team ( Raikonnen / Ogier/ Citroen C4 )

There are 2 new teams :

Therminator World Rally Team ( Gronholm / TBD / Ford Focus )
Monster World Rally Team ( Ken Block / Ford Focus ) as mentioned in here : http://idforums.net/index.php?showtopic=39...0&#entry1128924

This ought to be exciting, although is it literally just Ford and Citroen competing?

For the WRC constructor's title? Yeah, that's it, everyone else has quit WRC.

So presumably there will be cars other than Fords and Citroens actually racing? I know Subaru backed out but there has to be some competing, just not backed by the company itself...

Most of the WRC events are shared venues with PWRC events, so yeah, there will be other cars racing. But not for the WRC titles, so it is a given that both of those manufacturers will add onto their already impressive WRC wins...

Yea, the economy took it's tolls on the sport. Luckily they're adding Super 2k cars, so this should prove to be interesting.

It wasn't like there was anyone else actually competitive for the past 5 years or so. Makes no sense to run a team if you aren't even in contention.

Just go watch the IRC, so much better.

Saying this right now...Loeb wins it all. That's what this'll be...unless he switches to F1.

Now I remember back when this shit was still on Speed...man those were the days. You had not only Mitsu and Subaru, but Skoda and Hyundai.

Rossi will go F1 before Loeb. Loeb has very mediocre times in an open wheel car and isn't trained in being meticulously consistent (which is an enormous part of setting up the car in practice sessions). The only teams that will let Loeb drive for them will be mid-pack to bottom feeder teams and I doubt he'll want to drive an uncompetitive car.

Loeb is a genius on Rally stages, but has no business being in a F1 car, especially when GP2 folks are out-gunning him. The decks are stacked heavily against him, and with the refueling ban, Loeb would have an enormously hard time keeping his tires in the conditions his engineers would want to allow extended runs.

This post has been edited by flohtingPoint on Jan 7 2010, 08:23 PM

Jeez, just Citroen and Ford? No thanks, I'd rather watch something else.

WRC has eroded. No more Hyundai, either!

He does well in sportscars though, maybe he should go there after his tenure in the WRC.

Touring cars is a popular place for retiring racers to hide out in until they've had their fill or get ousted. I'm reminded of Mika's ill fated DTM experience at this moment.

The results for 2009 were :

Loeb 93 points
Hirvonen 92 points

That's not a runaway victory by any means.

I do hope Hirvonen can take it this year. Loeb makes very few errors and always finds speed other drivers just can't for some reason. I don't want to say he is boring but I don't have much interest in watching him whenever the cameras follow his car.

It's disappointing that it's still just Ford and Citroen again in the running but as Floh pointed out. It was the economy and with the new regulations coming out. I'd imagine it will attract more manufacturer's back to the sport, hopefully. Like to see companies like Renault, Suzuki and Mitsubishi back in it. Audi would be nice to see but I doubt it'll happen ever.

This post has been edited by RalliKai on Jan 8 2010, 01:32 PM

Manu's are dropping from F1 too. Toyota and BMW bailed after this past season. Lotus joined up but they'll be a bottom feeder and probably out of F1 in three years.

Renault is pretty much gone as well.

Yes and no. They were on the fence but they've reported that they're taking a mulligan this season and are going to be trying to make a championship run next year. Now, can they do this with Kubica at the wheel? I dunno...

sure he could, button did, i know theres more to it but meh

realisticly kubica has about the same chance as most all the promising talent coming up through the ranks, but it really takes something extra like what Hamilton and Vettel (and hopefully kobayashi) have to win multiple titles, and a good car,

edit,
wait a minute this is the WRC thread, uhh rally drivers are crazy, saved

This post has been edited by MG starion on Jan 9 2010, 03:01 AM

Button won because of the double diffuser. That Brawn car at the seasons open, was so much better than every other car on the grid. Winning the first 6 out of 7 and then a hodge podge of other people winning races and no clear competitor all but secured his championship. Button is the worst drivers champ since Jacques.

F1 is better than WRC anyway =P

This post has been edited by flohtingPoint on Jan 9 2010, 08:48 AM

At least Button is more of a likeable guy than say Hamilton or someone. Seems to have quite a good personality.

Oh I cant stand Hamilton. He has that "nice guy" schtick going on that makes me want to barf. Especially back when he and Alonso were teammates and he carried that shit eating grin everywhere with him because he had Ron Dennis in his corner when push came to shove in the team.

Button is getting VERY cocky. I cant go a day w/out getting an RSS update on my Blackberry reporting something about Button saying he's definitely going to take down Hamilton and that he'll defend his title easily or that he cant wait to be on "equal ground" with Schumacher.

You forget Stobart Ford.Anyway this is last year of wrc cars.Next year cars based s2000 class but 1.6 engine with turbocharger.Mini,Fiat and Peugot will join wrc next year.Sadly there is no news for Mitsubishi and Subaru.They wanted 2.0 engine cars grup n based but fia reject them.Noboy knows what are they planing for 2011 season.

It was an early list, Stobart I think is still not 100% confirmed.

http://www.rallybuzz.com/fia-wrc-2010-mt-entries/

It looks like we could see Skoda returning aswell. P-G Andersson will be driving a Fabia S2000 car in Sweden this year according to this article.

http://wrc.com/jsp/index.jsp?lnk=101&id=67...+toughest+fight

I could still see Mitsubishi returning in the near future with the Colt as their platform. Don't understand why the FIA wants to move down to the 1.6L displacement engine though.