Motorsport: Rallying rules come under the microscope

The World Council of Motorsport is due to meet on June 24 and the future of world rallying is high on the agenda. Rafts of changes, not only technical, are to be tabled by the Kiwi president of world rallying, Morrie Chandler.

Chandler wants rallying to be at the forefront of global motorsport, and now Formula One finds itself embroiled in clashes of egos and brinkmanship, he may just have the recipe for rallying to usurp F1 as the world number one motor-racing series.

"We've taken a very critical analysis of our sport [rallying] wanting to know if it's going good, if it's right and do we need to modify it," said Chandler. "I make no secret that for a number of years I have been critical of the structure we have that controls the organisers and competitors.

"It takes away a lot of their rights and freedoms and I've been pushing to release a lot of our regulations to give more opportunities to organisers to organise their own event, in their own country, and do the best [they can]."

Chandler has finally managed to get a number of working groups to question rules to see if they are beneficial to the sport. These gatherings by the sport's decision-makers, guided by Chandler's firm hand, have decided that if a rule doesn't improve the sport - get rid of it.

"We've now got three pages of bullet-point proposals going to the WCMS at the end of the month and I hope we will get support. We're hoping the changes, which we are calling the reinvention of the world rally champs, will be approved," said Chandler.

While the document itself is confidential, Chandler did mention a few items that have been considered necessary to either be changed or dumped.

WRC wants to create opportunities where privateers can come in with their car using local parts rather than the perfectly homologated nut or bolt. "There's a lot of support for changes like this, and others, and just because we've been doing things the same way for 30 years, it doesn't mean they're right. It's now time for changes.

"If we get support for the changes, we'll be able to run stages at night, run an event over mixed surfaces with one type of tyre doing the whole rally, if the organiser wants to do it that way."

The proposals aim to return rallying to what it used to be. A challenge and an adventure, not the almost circuit race it is now where cars spend more time touring between stages than actually racing. The cars change tyres between stages, raise or lower the suspension according to the surface they are racing on and all manner of other tweaks and fiddling.

"We want to get rid of all that," said Chandler. "We're saying let's just take the car and go rallying. I'm hopeful these changes will be accepted by the world council in a positive way."