WRC 2015 season

[MadMatt]

The season starts soon with the traditional Monte-Carlo rally so let's see what we've got so far for 2015!

Calendar

1. Monte-Carlo
2. Sweden
3. Mexico
4. Argentina
5. Portugal
6. Sardinia
7. Poland
8. Finland
9. Germany
10. Australia
11. France
12. Spain
13. GB

Nothing really new. Let's see the line-up:

Teams

VW Motorsport
- Ogier
- Latvala
VW Motorsport II
- Mikkelsen
Hyundai WRT
- Neuville
- Sordo
Hyundai Motorsport N
- Paddon
Citroën WRT
- Ostberg
- Meeke
M-Sport WRT
- Evans
- Tanak
Jipocar Czech National Team
- Prokop
FWRT
- Bertelli
Unknown
- Kubica

Loeb will also take part in 1 or more events.

Regulations

On a technical side of things, the biggest difference to last year is that the dirvers won't get split times or performance information during the stage, which is a good thing in my opinion!

VW will be tough to beat, but I expect Ogier to have really hard time with Latvala!

[Abrahamon]

Season starts tonight with 4 games.

Starting the discussion....Crazy how close we were to starting the 2nd NHL season with a Seattle team:

[RicME85]

Was on the android Autosport app last night and was surprised to see the R-GT Cup.
Seems bizarre to rally GT cars

[MadMatt]

It is, especially Porsches with their very bad polar moment of inertia. Very unstable to drive I would imagine, hence the big rear wing allowed and fat rear tyres, but that doesn't stop you from seeing these cars spinning in the airpins. Will be interesting anyway!

[stefan_]

First view: 2015 DS3 WRC livery





via wrc.com


First view: Prokop’s 2015 Fiesta RS




via wrc.com


McRae inspires 2015 Fiesta livery



via wrc.com

[Pierce89]

Am I the only person who feels bad for any driver not in a VW? Noone will compete against VW until they ignore the "traditional" budgets from WRC past. To beat VW, Citroen will have to spend till their eyes bleed.

[MadMatt]

... which they don't do. I don't think VW will be beaten on the long run, but occasional wins by Hyundai or Citroën might be possible. I doubt M-Sport will score any win tho, unless VW or others hit trouble.

With that being said, we don't know who will win between Ogier and Latvala. I don't think Ogier will lose his concentration as he did last year, allowing Latvala to close the gap, but I was still impressed by Jari-Matti on tarmac where he beat Ogier more than once!

Now we have paddle shift again, and some evolution allowed on the components, but I don't think VW will let the others close on gap because of this.

[McMrocks]

First view: 2015 DS3 WRC livery

http://images.wrc.com/News/2015/January ... 6x504.jpg?

As we are a technical forum i'd like to raise the question what advantage a 'tilted' suspension has. If you look at the front wheel you can see the shocker and the spring is tilted backwards. If i remember correctly someone called that layout 'pro-dive'(as the car will dive more under braking) and it should improve the grip while braking. Does it really?

[MadMatt]

Maybe this can help you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_angle

In WRC regulations say that you can only have 2 different uprights. So either you have:

- left and right identical
- front and rear identical

Citroën went for left and right identical obviously, while M-Sport went with front and rear identical.



In the R5 category they can only have 1 upright for the whole car!

To get back to the topic of dynamics, yes, having that caster angle will increase dive under braking, but more importantly, it will help your wheels to go back to their central (no steering angle) position, which is a big advantage in rallying. You can have anti-dive geometry if you don't want the car to dive too much, so it is not really a problem to have such high angles.

Here is a picture I took at Rally Finland last year of Henning Solberg's car where you can really see the caster angle AND the huge suspension travel where the front wheel centreline goes below the lowest point of the chassis:

[MadMatt]

Robert's livery for 2015:



So he won't be using the 2014 Fiesta then, sticking with the mk1, unless they couldn't do the rendering on the new model.

[MadMatt]

The new Polo WRC 2015:

[stefan_]

[bdr529]

It is, especially Porsches with their very bad polar moment of inertia. Very unstable to drive I would imagine, hence the big rear wing allowed and fat rear tyres, but that doesn't stop you from seeing these cars spinning in the airpins. Will be interesting anyway!

Chris Harris had a go in one a few weeks ago, looks like a lot a fun to drive

[Pierce89]

... which they don't do. I don't think VW will be beaten on the long run, but occasional wins by Hyundai or Citroën might be possible. I doubt M-Sport will score any win tho, unless VW or others hit trouble.

With that being said, we don't know who will win between Ogier and Latvala. I don't think Ogier will lose his concentration as he did last year, allowing Latvala to close the gap, but I was still impressed by Jari-Matti on tarmac where he beat Ogier more than once!

Now we have paddle shift again, and some evolution allowed on the components, but I don't think VW will let the others close on gap because of this.

So you don't think this Sebastian is quite like the last?

[MadMatt]

So Robert is testing, but not with M-Sport, and with a truck that has Italian plates on it, like A-Style, so I think he will go with the Italian team although it says on his truck RK World Rally Team.