The performances of Peugeot this season will almost certainly ensure a second World title for lanky Finn Marcus Gronholm and another Manufacturers win for the French team. At a time when the WRC is trying to increase its exposure and perhaps one day take on F1 head-to-head, the World Rally Championship is in danger of getting more than just F1-style TV coverage. It would be nice if the FIA could so something about the dominant 206's but they can't and won't (even though the nimble little Peugeot's need those over-sized front and rear bumpers to just about get to the minimum WRC car length). As a result the 206 will, in much the same fashion as the 205 before it, change the future evolution of WRC cars in the next few seasons.
The Peugeot's are agile, light and super quick - something proven time and again by their performances on asphalt rallies and particularly fast stages. In comparison, rival cars are beginning to look more and more out of place.
Cars like the Focus, Lancer and Octavia are too big (in varying degrees) to be able to compete with the Peugeot's. Citroen's Xsara and the Subaru Impreza are the kind of cars that are similar to the 206 in characteristics and performance.
Attributes such as chassi strength and engine power are losing their importance relative to issues such as weight and the resulting power to weight ratio. Ultimately, the chassi's used by Peugeot, Citroen and Subaru are in essence three door hatch-backs. The Focus, Lancer and Octavia are five-door family cars. The TV-era WRC will favour the agile and the quick and not necessarily the strong or the reliable. It is therefore going to be the case that if the WRC is serious about its drive to be more TV friendly, and manufacturers are serious about winning, many of the current crop of cars will require significant evolutionary design work.
M-Sport boss Malcolm Wilson seems only too aware of this. It is rumoured that he is prepared to cut spending on big salaries for the likes of McRae and Sainz in order to plough the cash into developing the new evolution of the Focus. This will be important if the Focus is to keep pace with the 206 and Xsara in the coming seasons. Shedding some of the Focus' weight and engineering work to improve its handling on sealed surfaces are areas requiring immediate attention. But more radical plans are perhaps needed if teams genuinely want to beat the Peugeot's, under the assumption that the French squad do not bow out at the top at the end of 2004/5.
Mid-sized hatchbacks may end up being the order of the day to compete with the 206's and unfortunately for many of the teams struggling at present, this will require fundamental changes to their chassi design. The requirements that the 206 will force upon the WRC will be a step too far for most teams, requiring the introduction of new cars into their existing line-ups or perhaps even scraping development work thus far on existing chassi's to start over again. The likes of Ford will either need to re-design their chassi towards a shorter wheel base or fill their current car ranges with new designs.
In either case, teams and manufacturers who are serious about wining the WRC against the Peugeot's (as opposed to once they quit) will need to invest some serious amounts of cash. Whether it be in re-developing existing cars or introducing completely new ones, the performance of Peugeot and the changing face of the WRC has redefined the game manufacturers are playing.
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