And there you have it: the fastest World Rally Cars in history are about to be severely pegged back, as the FIA has announced that, from 2025, the ballistic Rally1 cars that compete at the front of the WRC field will drop their hybrid element in a bid to save costs. A reduction in the air restrictor will also limit next year’s cars, while the crazy aero that has played a prominent role in the WRC since 2017 will be watered down to rein in the awe-inspiring speeds of the current generation cars.
The future of the Rally1 ruleset, which was only introduced in 2022, had looked uncertain in recent months after the introduction of a 100kW hybrid system failed to bring in new manufacturers and sent costs soaring. Removing the system should free up over 80kg of weight, but it’ll also mean drivers won’t get a periodic 120hp boost during stages. Then, in 2026, further restrictions will come in place that’ll see engine power capped at around 330hp, which isn’t far off what the pre-2017 era cars were producing. Rally1 cars are here to stay, they just won’t look quite as fast - nor will they roam service parks in silence - in 12 months.
A week before the announcement, PH sat down for a chat with a chap who knows first-hand just how bonkers these hybrid Rally1 machines really are. Jari-Matti Latvala, Toyota World Rally Team boss and 18-time WRC winner, was on hand at the recent GR Yaris snow drive in Finland to show mere mortals like me what decades worth of competitive rallying know-how looks like with comfortably the most sideways passenger lap I’ve ever experienced. Afterwards, over a bowl of moose soup (it’s better than it sounds) we talked about what it's like driving a cutting-edge, 500hp+ rally car flying through the forests of Rally Finland, and why the WRC is about to undergo such a radical shake-up.
Although Jari-Matti hasn’t been a full-time driver since 2019, he’s the perfect person to talk to you through the ins and outs of the most advanced rally cars ever created. Not only did he finish runner-up to Sebastien Loeb and Ogier - arguably the greatest rally drivers of all time - in the championship on three occasions, as team principal he’s also steered Toyota’s factory squad to a trio of titles with Ogier and WRC wunderkind Kalle Rovanpera since 2021. That didn’t stop him from jumping back into the hot seat for last year’s Rally Finland, where he experienced the electrifying speed of the Rally1 car for the first time.
“The beginning was of course a bit tough because I knew the consequences, if I go off, can be a bad story." He confessed to being a touch cautious - and perhaps a bit intimidated by the ferocity of the hybrid power - on the opening two days. “You feel it immediately! It comes through your back quite significantly," he admitted with a beaming grin on his face. “Always the feeling [when the hybrid engages], it’s a nice feeling. Because the power is sort of like waiting to come. At the same time when it stops, you lose 120hp. And actually you can feel like somebody’s touching the handbrake […] it’s like the performance is dropping.”
Interestingly, Jari-Matti noted that parts of his old driving style, namely a technique where he’d gently ride the brake in the middle of fast corners to settle the car, didn’t translate with the new hybrid cars. “So let's say you have a straight and the corner, and you start to [apply] a little bit of brake, actually it switches [the hybrid system] off.” That was a result of not being confident enough, he admitted, suggesting that “you need to be committed” with the hybrid cars.
Even in a round-table interview, it's impossible not to get swept up in how Jari-Matti recounts his experiences at the pinnacle of WRC. He lives and breathes rallying, as do many in this neck of the Finnish woods, which you’ll likely know if you’ve ever seen one of his highly enthusiastic interviews at the end of a stage. So you know when he says the current Rally1 regulations weren’t sustainable (after waxing lyrical about how incredible the cars are) that something needed to change.
What exactly are the issues, then? Firstly, Jari-Matti says the cost of the hybrids is prohibitively expensive: “We have lost privateer teams in the Rally1 class, we’re not going to have privateers running these cars anymore.” A ballpark figure of €400,000 - €500,000 (£342,000 - £427,000) per event is mentioned by one of the Toyota WRC team members during a factor tour later that day. That includes testing and team support, but over the course of a 13-round season that quickly escalates to millions.
That’s partly because the Rally1 cars only share the A-pillar, roof and door skins with the road-going GR Yaris. The rest of the car is purpose-built for the WRC, including a rally-specific four-cylinder turbo engine in place of the production model’s three-pot, and a bespoke spaceframe chassis built to withstand the sort of impacts that no conventional car has to worry about. Meanwhile, the Rally2 version, which sits much closer to the production GR Yaris, is naturally a fair bit slower, but the prices are capped considerably lower at around €200,000.
Despite the cost advantages, Jari-Matti says that the sheer step in performance between the more junior categories and a hybrid Rally1 car gives young drivers a mountain to climb when they progress to the top class. “I think the idea of bringing them a bit closer, because this ultimate Rally1 car is so quick at the moment. So it doesn't matter if we take a little bit slower with that, bringing it closer to the Rally2. It would maybe also help with the costs.”
Tacit support on one hand then, although on the other he’s not too keen on the greater restrictions on power and aero. Nor is he a fan of the controversial new points system that dishes out scores on both Saturday and Sunday, meaning anyone who crashes out at the start of the weekend still gets a bite at the cherry. Awkwardly, at Rally Sweden, Elfyn Evans came away with the most points despite only finishing second to Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi.
“We were against it when the proposition came”, he said in clear frustration. “We were saying that this is too complicated for the people to understand. And even drivers can get confused.” The idea was to give drivers a reason to go hell for leather on Sundays after suffering setbacks earlier in the weekend, but Jari-Matti suggests the new points system was a “countermeasure” after initial plans to shorten the weekend were rejected by the FIA. That, he says, has created the “complicated system where we are now.”
With that, I left him to finish lunch, and to have a poke around the new GR Yaris Ogier and Rovanpera Editions parked out front. But Jari-Matti made it clear that, despite five years of domination, Toyota is still committed to the future of the WRC, whether, he says, that’s “focusing on the e-fuels or hydrogen.” His personal devotion to the sport is plainly not at risk either; even though he acknowledges that his days as a full-time WRC driver are up, he still takes any excuse to slide about: “The word 'sideways' is one which always gives me the high emotion", he says gleefully. If that doesn’t qualify you for PH Hero status, I don’t know what does.
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