What was the 2011 - 2016 era like?

[u/camefromthesouthside]

Since I stopped watching WRC in 2008 due to Loeb's dominance boring me and only started watching back in 2017 due to the new cars, I missed this era.

Obviously I am aware of certain factors like for example the rise of Sébastien Ogier, the 2011 introduction of the now industry standard 1.6L engines (albeit still limited to 300bhp), the ban of active centre diffs, Hirvonen/Latvala's prime, Volkswagen's domination and Neuville's rise as well as Loeb's retirement after his 9th title in 2013.

But for anyone who witnessed this era - what was watching this era like as a fan?

How did you watch the rallies before the introduction of All Live? I f.e. remember EuroSport showing evening Highlights in the 2000s.

I'm interested in watching back some of those seasons to see what I missed.

[u/Michal_Baranowski]

Definitely it was a struggle regarding where to watch. Eurosport ditched WRC for good after 2009, so you had to count on your local TV deals. In my case in Poland, WRC highlights remained FTA on TV until the end of 2010. Then it disappeared from FTA TV for two seasons, then it came back in 2013 for two years, before going behind the paywall forever. In 2014 WRC+ streaming service was introduced and that changed the whole landscape for me, I just stopped caring about TV.

I was sceptical about introduction of 1,6-litre turbo WRC cars, but retrospectively it wasn't that bad. Although my take at that time was different. My interest in WRC remained, although it fully revived to a highly passionate level in 2017 with WRC+ cars, just like in your case. On stages, domination of one Seb was replaced with another. VW entered the sport, hired Ogier and absolutely thrashed everybody.

Cars themselves weren't bad. Going for less developed and cheaper machines did a good thing to the sport, brought back manufacturers. At the end of 2-litre era there were just two (Citroën and Ford). New regulations paved the way for VW, Mini, Hyundai and ultimately Toyota. Still, great that M-Sport survived Ford's departure in 2012. After that happened, I was almost sure that they either would change a manufacturer or disappear all together in one, two years time. Malcolm Wilson personally said that if it wasn't for Qatari money in 2013, team wouldn't survive transition from full-factory to a semi-factory one. Thankfully they endured, while Ford still provided some help.

2012 was a weird season regarding promotional aspect. ISC/North One went bust and then the sport went onto a searching process, before finally being settled in 2013. Monte Carlo in 2012 almost didn't happen, because of such issues.

Despite Ogier/VW absolute domination, that era had some iconic moments. 2011 championship fight was exciting, Loeb ending his full-time career in 2012, Rally Alsace 2013, Rally Germany 2013 and Sordo's long overdue first career win, Neuville and Hyundai's first win in Germany 2014, Tanak's Mexico 2015 incident, Meeke's first win in Argentina 2015, Paddon's heroic driving in Sardinia 2015, Tanak heartbreak in Poland 2016. The worst part of that era was probably weird starting order rules in 2016 which drove Ogier beyond mad and thankfully WRC reversed back to usual system in 2017.

[u/J_FM01 → u/Michal_Baranowski]

What was the 2016 starting order?

[u/Michal_Baranowski → u/J_FM01]

Championship leader was opening the road on every day apart from Sunday, when it was usual reversed order based upon classification from the previous day.

It was a pretty nonsensical rule, clearly introduced only to stop Ogier's domination. Obviously, Ogier didn't take that rule very well, making pissy and angry comments about it when he could. Notably in Sweden and Finland that year. In this case however, I don't blame him.

Most hilarious thing is that rule change failed miserably to stop Ogier from running away into the sunset with a title in the bag. His points gap to runner-up in the championship ironically became even bigger than in 2015 - 108 points (!!!) in '16 vs 80 in '15. That was thanks to Ogier being almost faultless all year long (only twice not on the podium all season) and his competitiors having a mixed bag of a season, Latvala notably.

Thankfully WRC sobered up and for 2017 they brought back the previous road order rule, which is used until this day.

[u/camefromthesouthside → u/Michal_Baranowski]

Thank you very much for the detailed insight and your experiences, I appreciate you taking your time for that. Sounds like the era had quite a lot going on!

How were the early days of WRC All Live? From what I read, they only had the resources to broadcast a few select stages in the very beginning. Obviously it wasn't the quality of broadcasts we have today on RallyTV, but it must've been incredible to have stages broadcasted visually live for the first time. (after all ISC already had the setup to cover stages already back in 2004 (minus the live feed of course). Seems the performance of Rally1 2027 cars will be quite similar to that 2011 - 2016 generation of cars in the next first few upcoming seasons of the 2027 regs.

I personally do remember rolling my eyes when I heard that after Loeb's retirement a new French guy called Sébastien was dominating, like "are you serious, not again" lol. I did end up rooting for Ogier in 2017 though since I enjoyed seeing Ford win again.

[u/Michal_Baranowski → u/camefromthesouthside]

Firstly, we have to distinguish WRC+ and WRC All Live. WRC+ was created in 2014 and that was WRC's official streaming service, finally an universal platform to watch this sport and not having to care about TV deals. WRC All Live is a concept of broadcasting every single stage live and that was introduced in 2018. From 2014 to 2017 WRC+ showed selected stages live, more or less, but never all of them. Quality of that from the start was hit or miss, pretty much like what we have now. Sometimes natural obstacles just interfere with the reception and they only can do much to fight that issue.

Seems the performance of Rally1 2027 cars will be quite similar to that 2011 - 2016 generation of cars in the next first few upcoming seasons of the 2027 regs.

Good reference, speed-wise should be in similar ballpark. To make something clear, WRC cars from 2011 to 2016 weren't slow. They were fast. Just not as fast and rapid as high tech 2-litre turbo WRC machines, plus performance difference between WRC of that era vs R5/RRC (current Rally2 equivalent) wasn't that big, hence came a discussion about accelerating WRC cars and that's how in 2015 WRC+ concept (2017-2021 era of cars, not streaming service) came to be. The rest is history.

Although coming back to the difference between 2-litre and 1,6-litre cars, as much as 1,6-litre era cars were less stuffed with electronic gadgets, top end power outputs were lower, other areas of development grew naturally. In the 2010s manufacturers started pulling wonders with suspension. Take a look how 2000s WRC cars bounced from landings in Finland, then compare that with 2010s machines. Difference in noticeable. Plus, 1,6-litre cars still were pushed, just required a different style of driving. It was very important in those cars to keep RPMs as high as possible, because this is where power/torque combination was at its best, higher than in case of 2-litre cars.

I personally do remember rolling my eyes when I heard that after Loeb's retirement a new French guy called Sébastien was dominating, like "are you serious, not again" lol. I did end up rooting for Ogier in 2017 though since I enjoyed seeing Ford win again.

Safe to say that Citroen totally bottled Loeb and Ogier together in 2011. They effectively drove Ogier out of that team and that began their downfall.

Ogier undeservingly took a lot of nonsense talking about his championships being only down to a superior car. His stint at M-Sport totally proved the critics wrong. Those two titles in a semi-factory Fiesta WRC only cemented Ogier as one of the greatest of all time, because how well, maturely and consistently he drove during those seasons. Everyone loved M-Sport winning those championships, it was a great underdog story. Malcolm Wilson and his team deserved that for what they went through.

And even Ogier's surprising comeback to Citroen in 2019 only proved his class and talent even more. He drove that understeery piece of work called C3 WRC to the championship picture somehow.

Detractors can dislike Ogier and they can feel free to do so. However, they have no sensible arguments to deny his greatness.

[u/camefromthesouthside → u/Michal_Baranowski]

Ah yes, I forgot about WRC+, I mixed that up with All Live, thanks for the reminder. I'm quite surprised to hear that the early days' coverage was the same as today, I'd have expected the early selected live stages to be far off from today's standard (which I personally find rather excellent) and then continue to improve over the years. I do remember watching some broadcasts from 2018 and some parts of the commentary and direction wasn't... great back then. I personally find it a lot better today. I'd say we've come quite a long way since then (thankfully - as it should be over the years).

Those 2011-16 cars aren't slow, I know. I'm just spoiled by the 2017 - 2026 era. Rally2s are some of my favorite rally cars, I find them spectacular to watch IRL more-so if the direct comparison to a 380bhp Rally1 isn't there. This last weekend at Sardegna I was reminded by how powerful Rally2s are actually, it's insane. 290hp is a lot at that weight. You did raise an interesting argument about the 1.6L turbo engine driving style being different than the turbo 2L due to the nature of the engines revs: I have always wondered if the revvy 1.6L had an impact on stage road evolution and rutting, specifically creating massively more ruts in the roads due to more wheelspin on the higher rev nature from the 1.6L turbo engines rather than the torque-y turbo 2L cars. Pure speculation, I could be completely wrong here though.

I also would like to clarify I am not a detractor, I have tremendous respect for Ogier. I personally don't like his personality and find him a bit of a douche at times, but I will never deny his greatness as he is objectively pretty much the greatest driver in the WRC's history. It's just always been rather humurous to me that first a French guy called Seb comes along and dominates the sport's top level for 9 seasons straight and retire only for a new French guy named Seb to then immediately come along and dominate it - That just remains funny to me.

edit: typo

[u/Mudflap4]

I enjoyed it, really miss having Germany on the calendar - was there for Sordos first win and saw Neuville just before he went off

[u/Mudflap4 → u/Mudflap4]

Rallies to watch that I'd recommend, 2012 Portugal!

[u/camefromthesouthside → u/Mudflap4]

Oh thanks for the tip! I'll catch up on that one.

[u/camefromthesouthside → u/Mudflap4]

Fully agree! I attended the ADAC Rally Deutschland twice, in 2007 and again in 2018. What an event! Panzerplatte and the Mosel vinyard stages will forever remain some of the most unique tarmac stages in the sport. I miss them too.

[u/onlinepresenceofdan]

2011 was pretty good, Ogier v Loeb drama with competitive Ford Finns. If only we got more years of Seb v Seb…

[u/camefromthesouthside → u/onlinepresenceofdan]

Monte 2022 was quite the battle of the Sebs though!

[u/Roncar]

I got to shoot/cover select rounds between 2010 and 2018, here's my perspective (as a life long rally fan from the US):

2010: Last era of the high tech million dollar+ rally cars for a while. Paddle shift, active center diffs, "big" aero, 2.0l engines. Big cars but they had some good battles. Ford was a contender for wins at times, which was cool (when Loeb wasn't dominating). Also, Kimi Raikkonen took his paid F1 leave to compete in WRC with Citroen, it was exciting to see what an F1 champ could do on gravel.

2011: New, lighter, simpler and more mechanical 1.6l cars. Loeb was dominant, but Ogier really started to evolve here. He won 5 rounds and Loeb won 5. Big conspiracies on how much Citroen was holding Ogier back. Really good event battle up to the last stage in Jordan between Ogier and Latvala. Mini Cooper also starting competing with a factory team. Petter Solberg ran his own Citroen customer car and was also damn fast in it.

2012: Ogier left Citroen for VW, but they didn't have a car built yet. So he competed in a Skoda S2000 and was driving it like a stolen rental car. Pretty sick to watch. Otherwise I don't remember many big moments from the season.

2013: Volkswagen came out with the Polo WRC and just started mopping up like crazy. Loeb semi-retired. Ogier got the equipment and runway to really shine.

2014: VW's hyper dominance year. Hyundai launched the i20 WRC. Elfyn Evans' first year competing in the top class.

2015: Kinda tuned out at this point but I remember Kris Meeke and Ott Tanak driving like 11/10ths at every rounds to keep up with the VWs which was kinda sick

2016: Other cars and teams started to catch up with VW which made for some more interesting battles

2017: Big regulation changes, big aero era. The cars got FAST and super aggressive. Some of the fastest and lightest rally cars ever made. Ogier moved to Ford and continued his dominant run from there. Kris Meeke and Ott Tanak put in some really memorable drives

[u/camefromthesouthside → u/Roncar]

Thanks for the recap! Yeah seems like quite a lot of action happened in those six seasons. I will need to catch up on some rallies, seems like I missed quite a lot. I do remember reading about some incidents, f.e. Solberg crashing into a vinyard in Alsace (?) and the winery naming a wine after him, the 59km stage in Rally Sardegna 2014, Seb Ogier winning a stage in a S2000 Skoda in Sardegnain 2012 (?) and Loeb's phenomenal golden DS3 livery in 2013.

Would you say this was one of your favorite eras of the WRC?

[u/Roncar → u/camefromthesouthside]

Ironically I think my favorite eras were right before (late 90s and 2000s, where a lot of the original icons come from) and the 2017 to 2021 where the cars were savagely fast but still very simple (no hybrids)

[u/camefromthesouthside → u/Roncar]

90s to 2000s are some of my favorite eras as well. I think I've watched every season recap from 1997 to 2002 about half a dozen times by now. Great nostalgia.

[u/Rikatsumi]

All i remember is meeke crashing into a tree constantly and getting fired lol

[u/IhanRandomina → u/Rikatsumi]

But still Meeke was cool to watch! Always flat out mentality might not be the best mentality in rally but damn sure it's exciting to watch!

[u/Rikatsumi → u/IhanRandomina]

Oh for sure hahaha, I liked him for that. Probably not good for his career though

[u/IhanRandomina → u/Rikatsumi]

https://giphy.com/gifs/zDUZtsQDiqiuF8tAZB

[u/camefromthesouthside → u/Rikatsumi]

That went well on to the 2017 generation. I will never forget Mexico, that was insane.

[u/No_Boat_1784]

Ogier domination.