Talk:World Rally Championship

Female drivers?

Quick question for anyone in the know... can female drivers compete in the WRC? Erath 14:47, 19 October 2006 (UTC).

Yes, they can. Michèle Mouton even came close to winning the title. The article definitely needs a history section. Prolog 14:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the very quick reply. I'm working on the List of world cups and world championships article and it looks like we need a "unisex" section. Erath 14:52, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, good luck. It might be a bit hard, if not impossible, to find out this info for all of those. Prolog 14:59, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

If you are gonna build a history section, why not just create a page on it. It will be much clearer. Also (if you choose to do this) do a brief bit on it and then add a link back to History page! LB22 18:38, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I finally wrote the history section. It's very simple and not very long (8KB), so I think it serves the reader best as part of this article. If someone wants to write a more detailed piece, a separate article would then be a good idea. It is hard to find good references, though. Prolog (talk) 04:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Skoda

There seems to be no mention at all of Skoda who won their class if I remember correct for eleven consecutive years. An achievement to be noted I would think. 90.201.198.169 (talk) 21:21, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Only if they actually had opposition. Can that be confirmed? Over the years some classes are notoriously poorly entered. --Falcadore (talk) 02:39, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Nationality of Ford in WRC champions list

I think Ford is a company of the United States, though the WRC team may be based in the United Kingdom. On the other hand, the nationality of Toyota is Japan in the same list though the WRC team (TTE) based in Germany. Should we change the nationality of Toyota into Germany?--Morio 17:34, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I have seen this changed back and forth in this article. Ford is American, but BP-Ford World Rally Team is British and based in Cumbria, England. Rally-Live.com seems to use UK flag, but I can't say which flag would be more correct. Prolog 18:04, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

The Subaru rally team is English based too, but they're classed as Jap. Ford is american, period. PiP 01:58, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• yeah right and the Talbot Sunbeam Lotus was French... Hektor 13:57, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Ford is an American marque so it should stay that way. And European Ford is Germany-based, so it would get even more confusing. EOT. --Maggot666PL 15:02, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Ford have 2 divisions, Ford of America & Ford of Europe, the rally team is nothing to do with Ford of America and enters the fia championship under a British lisence - p8rsn

Excuse me, put Ford is effectively just a sponsor. The team is Malcolm Wilson Motorsport - and they are British. I'd be all for changing Subaru to British as well because they are Prodrive's Rally Team, although Subaru do have more involvement with Prodrive that Ford do with MWM if memory serves. --Falcadore (talk) 00:19, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Ford of Europe is not based in Britain, it is heavily located in Germany as well. Ford is an American marque, don't tell me the British are THAT desperate to lay claim to an automotive industry after letting theirs rot. Should we call Toyota F1 German now? Renault F1 British? Sorry, but the company bankrolling the job and putting their names on the car get the flag. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.89.152.63 (talk) 00:21, 21 December 2008 (UTC) It is I'm —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wrcf1 (talk • contribs) 17:22, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

So if its all about the dollars then whomever owns Marlboro should get the flag oF Ferrari F1? and Vodafone to McLaren? Perhaps the better solution is to remove all flags entirely for the teams. --Falcadore (talk) 06:25, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Ford is an American company, just like Toyota F1 is a Japanese company. Are the British wanting to show themselves as THAT desperate?

But the entry I believe is made by Ford Europe, which is British based. But the thing is about sport accuracy not any sense of petty nationalities. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 13:41, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

My personal view on the nationalities across all of the WRC articles is to stick with the official nationality of an entity, as that is the only one which is indisputable. If you bring something as faint, fluffy and/or peripheral as "what a team or driver personally identifies with" or "but the actual team is based here, you see...", then the edit wars, such as have lamentably happened in the Colin McRae article in the past, are unstoppable and inevitable.

As far as I'm concerned, for example, Burns and McRae should always have the British flag alongside their names, even if they are referred to, perfectly reasonably, as respectively "English" and "Scottish" in free prose, because as far as I'm aware, English and Scottish are not even formally nationalities, given that they appear on no passport (I could be wrong). The Manufacturers' issue is a stickier one: as far as I am aware, we have a Manufacturers' Championship rather than a Teams' or Constructors' Championship (I'll go and check the FIA website and see one term they use); so in an official sense, M-Sport is secondary. The idea is that they are representing the Ford marque, which is American. Having said that, I don't think the FIA recognise the nationality of a marque at all, so why are we even listing them in a table? As we can see here, it just seems to be provoking dispute.

Mind you, the whole debate's an utter mess. We may never solve it. Somebody mentioned that Ford enters the WRC under a British licence, which I presume means that they are represented by the MSA in the United Kingdom? MRacer (talk) 17:27, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

The WRC never seem to refer to manufacturers by country (ie. the flag never appears in their result tables - only the manufacturers logo) so it does seem unnecessary to use these flags in manufacturer tables. --Younger2007 (talk) 10:55, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely agree. If people are going to fight on this issue at the most pedantic of levels then delete the flags and be done with it. --Falcadore (talk) 11:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Is an American, "M-Sport, the team chosen by Ford Motor Company" (not with Ford of Europe, not with Ford of Germany, not with Ford of Britain) proof of facts M-Sport site M-sport.co.uk.

Quoted text:
Welcome to M-Sport

M-Sport, the team chosen by Ford Motor Company to mastermind their assault on the FIA World Rally Championship since 1997, has been growing in size and stature since it was originally formed in 1979 under the name of Malcolm Wilson Motorsport.

--Tomcha (talk) 19:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Following this discussion, I applied the same rule to Talbot, which should be labelled as French in 1981, as any year after 1978 - see Talbot (Hehiheho (talk) 14:19, 7 October 2012 (UTC)).

Sorry to reopen this comical conversation but if Ford has a USA flag based on competition licence, then there should be zero Japanese or Korean winners. Surely there has to be consistency rather than what wins arbitrary arguments.

What do people want from the flags, what are they here to display?

• Ultimate ownership of the car manufacturer: I would rule this out because it has no importance to WRC and would open debate about majority shareholders, exchange listings, headquarters. If Ford is American, Talbot would be French, and on other pages Skoda and SEAT would be German etc..
• Competition licence: As no nationality of teams is given on entry forms, so this could be based on guesswork some years for a nice-to-have addition to the article, but consensus is needed. Hyundai, Subaru, Toyota and Mitsubishi cease to be Japanese and will confuse the casual reader.
• Country of car homologation ASN: This is the flag that flies and anthem played when a 'manufacturer' wins a rally, according to WRC sporting regulations. However, as I understand it, it's the entrants that win the championship (see M-Sport 2017), which returns us to competition licence.

My opinion is remove all flags, and so I will do if no consensus is found here. The official standings don't have flags after all.

The other question is if the entrants should be listed as the champions here. Perhaps even two columns, helpful for where M-Sport were victorious in 2017, with Ford being the manufacturer.

I add that the source in note B does not even use the word licence so this is questionable too. Rally Wonk (talk) 12:14, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

@Rally Wonk I think some discussion happened on WikiProject page (later than 2009). Although I don't think I've seen refereces that use flags, so I support removing them from "Ford", "Toyota", etc. The anthem (couple of recent years) and flags are used on the teams: "M-Sport WRT", "Toyota Gazoo Racing", etc. We see it on every event on live TV, so whats the problem? So am I right that you are not proposing to remove flags from 2023 World Rally Championship etc? Pelmeen10 (talk) 16:56, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

This discussion seemed familiar to meed. It was discussed here and was started by me. There was a consensus to use the license the team has, the ASN, and that is explained in the notes in this article regarding M-Sport and Ford (which adds information to the article).

This decision might be challenged if there is new arguments but if so, then this should be taken to WikiProject Motorsport so more people can take part in discussion.Rpo.castro (talk) 18:43, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

The source in the note on Ford did not mention any licences at all, which is why I removed it. AFAIK, nobody can prove what nationality licence M-Sport or TGR have even today, nevermind trying to look historically, but I wouldn't waste time looking because not even all manufacturers competed before 1993 because it didn't always work this way.

@Pelmeen10 There is a distinction between the manufacturer and the entrant. We don't see/hear the UK flag/anthem because of M-Sport when they win, it is because of Ford UK, whose car it is. This is the problem we face, as with just your and @Rpo.castro replies have shown we have a contradiction. We can see Hyundai WRT have a German entrant license today because the German ASN publishes a list of holders, but as you say the Korean anthem is played because the manufacturer, Hyundai, homologates it there. So which is it?

I've edited since my post above to be correct to the manufacturer as the FIA gives us info for. I think that 2017 is a noted anomaly we have to live with. However I'd like to edit the other links away from the 'teams' which are the entrants that win the titles, or better still, add a third column for the competition winners.

The rules will be different for each championship so I don't think that a discussion at Project Motorsport will be fruitful. Also for tables on the season pages, the provable info is to move the flags to the 'manufacturer' column and not be in the 'entrant' column. Rally Wonk (talk) 20:39, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Removing the flags for the manufacturers would seem like the best solution per MOS:FLAG in this case. Other championships have their own situations, and the flags make sense for the drivers and co-drivers who are quite clearly representing their nations from a sporting perspective, but the ambiguity with the manufacturers in this case (particularly Ford, which can be considered American, British, or German) makes the flags inappropriate for our purposes. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 23:13, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Rules

I would love to see a short summary of some of the basic rules used in the WRC. By that, I mean things such as: how much time do teams have to "fix" damage between races? I thought that they were limited to fixing just minor damage between stages, but could do major repairs - with a time limit - after the day's stages were run. Can spectators help an overturned car? I was under the impression that, for some time anyway, no one could touch the car except the driver or co-driver, even if the car overturned. Are there rules for passing (much) slower cars? If the road ahead is completely blocked by an earlier accident, do the later drivers get a "do-over" since they can't get by?MarkieAA (talk) 14:00, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

World Rally Championship Page

03ogmsmith 15:48, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I've just updated the World Rally Championship Drivers Championship Table to accomadate Sebastian Loebs 2007 Championship Win (2 Dec 2007) - Let me know what you think and has anyone got the results of Rally GB 2007 as well as the points for the drivers and manufactuers (for Rally GB) so I can add these to the 2007 standings

This seems to have been updated already. Prolog 16:00, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Car - Stobart

Either the column in the 2008 standings should say Team or those "Stobarts" should be Fords. --Falcadore (talk) 10:22, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Good point. Corrected. --Ṃäģģöṭ · ↑¿₡₴៛↓ 13:35, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Co-drivers

I can't find anything on the page, other then the first sentence, in regards to whether co-drivers of world champions are considered world champions as well. Are they? Ottocrosso (talk) 10:23, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

While some sources might occasionally credit co-drivers as world champions, only drivers and manufacturers can officially achieve these titles. I have removed someone's addition of "co-driver" to the first sentence. Prolog (talk) 00:26, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that makes it a lot clearer. Ottocrosso (talk) 02:32, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

WRC User Box

Hi. I have created a WRC user box. You may edit it if you wish, but I am keeping the original. This is it:

WRCThis user is a fan of the World Rally Championship

TollHRT52 (talk) 15:42, 13 August 2012 (AEST)

Women

This article could use section for women. Most wins, most starts... Michèle Mouton was second in championship with her codriver Fabrizia Pons in 1982. [1] 185.18.60.191 (talk) 04:06, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Updates

I've done some updates as some sentences were a decade out of date, such as 'the majority of JWRC cars are Super 1600' or 'points are awarded in PWRC'. With the discussion on the 2021 season talk page such a mess I also clarified the rules on overall eligibility and priority. With so much updates I've had to reorganise the article and in the process removed some of the photos in 'History' as it was cluttered. There may be citations missing and more to add yet to keep bringing the article up to a decent quality. PushingPace (talk) 01:50, 6 April 2021 (UTC)