A year of upheaval and exciting(?) developments

[JayOTT]

There's a lot of excitement surrounding the new F1 cars, that promise to mitigate the long standing dirty air issue in single seat racing. But it's far from the only major change in the greater context of motorsport, and I wanted to list off just some of the things I'm intrigued to see play out in 2022;

World Endurance Championship: Porsche doesn't return until 2023, but Peugeot will enter the series this year and Toyota will therefore have factory competition for the first time since 2017. ByKolles is also set to return. WEC's top category then looks to have a good future despite Hypercar getting off to a slow start.

World Rally Championship: On one hand, it's a shame to see the Rally1 regulations downgrade suspension, gearbox and aero technology compared to the outgoing 17-21' spec cars. However, the engine is getting a hybrid boost to the point where the cars will have up to 514hp combined, a figure which exceeds many estimates of what the fastest Group B cars had.

World Rallycross Championship: The controversial decision to make RX1 electric may turn some fans away. On the other hand the electric engines do have 70-80 more horsepower than the outgoing supercars, so even if the spectacle of noise isn't the same, the spectacle of fast cars trying to navigate narrow mixed surface tracks remains intact.

Nitro Rallycross: But WRX has a serious competitor now, one planning to go global in 2022 with both a traditional ICE powered category, and an electric formula of their own quoted to make 1000hp, no typo. Don't be surprised if Rallycross as a sport starts to grow again after stagnating these past couple of years.

MotoGP: Grand Prix Motorbike racing by contrast won't be changing in 2022, but it's the parity of the competition itself that earns it a mention in my list. Gone are the days of Marquez owning the championship, now he's the underdog and just one of many riders trying to, and certainly capable of, stopping Quartararo from becoming the new dominant force.

Hopefully Covid can stay relatively contained this year, giving all of these series a chance to live up to the hype. Do you think there's anything I've overlooked?

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Good list!

 

[bi11y]

Good list - there sure are some interesting looking F1 designs - but I worry we might end up with a runaway aced design or a f1xed situation so it's good to have some other things to follow.

The nitro rallycross 1000hp electric car demo at the race of champions might have been overshadowed - or at least out screamed - by the Audi S1 pikes peak demo runs..... but there was something interesting about how it seemed to be able to pull some pretty big controlled powerslides and I wonder if they have clever torque vectoring and what the competition of that machine might be like.

World Rally Cross that I have seen has been pretty entertaining but has not been very easy to see coverage consistently in the past. Will be interesting how the new machine go and if we can get to watch much coverage.

 

[JayOTT]

It's a shame the WEC hype fell through because Peugeot's pulling a Nissan right now. The rest of what I mentioned should still work out fine, I saw that the new Rally1 cars are near enough as fast overall as the outgoing WRC spec, though I have to catch up on the Sweden highlights. I'm mostly going to be watching MotoGP/2/3 however as that is what my pay TV subscription of choice covers besides F1, at least until more news about what Nitro RX is doing and where it will be available comes out.

 

[jgf]

Well, the only series we hear much of in the US is F1, NASCARE, and "Indycar"; and each is but a step from spec racer status. I expect no improvement. Increasingly over the past twenty years I find vintage racing and club racing much more interesting and exciting than anything those three offer. (I've nothing against spec racers when designed as such - SRF, IROC; but loathe when a previously varied series devolves to spec racing due to increasingly stifling and draconian regulations.)

ALMS/IMSA (they change the sanctioning body so often it's near impossible to keep up with) and GT racing are still interesting, though I can't recall the last time I saw a televised event. Though the former seems to be adopting NASCARE rules - one car spins on a four mile road course and they throw a full course yellow, another race is red flagged for "rain on the track".

Endurance racing (a favorite of mine; I stunk at sprint races, but in the car for 2-4 hours I was fine) is an abomination in the US. Networks think nothing of running Wimbledon 12 hours a day for a week, but cover one 12 hour race? Impossible! They grudgingly give Indy and Daytona four to five hours. Lemans may get a two hour highlight program a week or so after the event.

And, speaking generally, US mentality does not cater to rally driving. "Only one car on the track at a time?! We want to see racing!" (Even if just the contrived circus of NASCARE.)

Ultimately i am not optimistic about the future of racing at the professional level because it is all corporate controlled thus prioritizing marketing over actual racing. So support your local races, and events such as Goodwood, you will meet real racers with real cars, there to race not promote.