A terrible calculation error could have happened to the World Championship rally promoter.
Starting in the championship, Elfyn Evans should be kept with Taskulaski. PDO
The point system of the Rally World Series is changing.
In the method introduced at the beginning of 2024, the rally events are divided into two parts. Most of the points are awarded based on the Saturday night break situation.
The pair that led the race on Saturday gets 18 points, and the next nine teams have less points 18–15–13–10–8–6–4–3–2–1.
The condition for these points is, of course, that the competitor also drives the whole Sunday and stamps his card at the last time control station.
But a new rally starts on Sunday. In other words, only the fastest driver on Sunday gets seven points. This is to try to guarantee that the drivers will no longer drive in their socks, saving tires and only thinking about the Power Stage bonus points.
On Sunday, a total of seven points will be awarded to the fastest drivers. And of course, the Power Stage remains the same.
The maximum amount collected from the rally is still 30 points. It just requires being the fastest driver by Saturday night and also being the fastest on Sunday and on the Power Stage.
– We at Toyota were against this: it is complicated and difficult for the ordinary sports follower. But the rules are the rules and we go by them, team manager Jari-Matti Latvala says.
“Too difficult”
The WRC promoter hadn’t thought about his king idea very far. In the rally, it is now possible – and very likely this will also happen during the season – that the winner of the rally (officially the one who runs the route the fastest during the entire weekend) does not get the most points.
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Ott Tänak has also criticized the new points system. PDO
For example, the driver who led the rally by over two minutes gets a flat tire on Sunday. It takes 1.5 minutes to fix it.
Then he can still win the overall rally competition and collect the maximum points on Saturday. But if he misses no points on Sunday, the second or third in the race can grab a bigger points haul.
– Who will be the winner of the rally then? Latvala asks.
– This is the difficulty. I understand that it needs to be reformed, but this is perhaps a bit too difficult a system. Now we are actually talking about two different rallies.
Toyota’s own proposal was that one extra point would always be given for winning a special test.
– That would have been an easier solution.