The current Rally1 cars will then become history, and the new WRC27 cars will, from a technical perspective, be more comparable to today’s Rally2 cars.
FIA has also received backlash on the matter. Journalists have criticised the communication of the international automobile federation regarding the issue. It has been said that the content of the new regulations remains somewhat unclear, even though the rules are said to be practically finalised.
FIA’s technical director, Xavier Mestelan-Pinon, partially admits that communication has failed but still feels that FIA has conveyed the matter clearly enough.
“If I may – yes, perhaps I wasn’t clear before, but we have already said that the regulation was validated last December by the World Council. When I mentioned that we are still refining the details, it is as it is for all our regulations. A regulation is alive – it evolves constantly, just as we do. It’s something that keeps improving every day,” he reminds.
However, Mestelan-Pinon directly admits that there is still plenty of work to be done with the new regulations.
“When we talk about details, we mean, for example, refining specific parts of the regulation regarding the shock absorbers or the wheel arches,” he explains.
“It’s very detailed, because when you write new regulations, there are always some grey areas that need to be finalised – defined more precisely, yes. This happens simply because the manufacturers are working on these topics and they may say, “Oh, this isn’t clear enough, how can we elaborate?” So, this is the kind of work we’re doing,” he continues.
The 2027 technical regulations are, however, practically complete. For example, Toyota has already confirmed that it is developing a new car based on them.
“But the regulation is already written and validated. And I would say that some of our manufacturers have already designed cars based on it. If they’ve done so, it’s because they already have everything needed to design a car,” the FIA boss reminds.
But it’s also true that when FIA has been asked this year about the new technical regulations, the answers have always been quite similar. The car manufacturers have also indicated that they still need to wait for the finalised regulations before completing the design work on the new cars. There is therefore still a clear communication gap.
“You’ll get the same message from us and from the manufacturers regarding the work we’ve done during the summer. As I mentioned, after Finland, we carried out the last physical test – the acceleration sled test. We did the crash tests to confirm what we saw in the CFD simulations, and we finalised the last test last Thursday,” Mestelan-Pinon says, referring to the period before the Central European Rally.
Mestelan-Pinon reports that the results from the safety-related tests have been very promising.
“All the tests went very well and confirmed the CFD results. That means the car is as safe as a Rally1 car, or even safer, depending on the test. It shows that we’ve done a good job together with the manufacturers,” he says.
“The design of these new regulations is a good one in terms of safety – it means the same level as now, or better, depending on the case. But again, the regulation is done. If you want to design a car, you have everything you need in your hands,” Mestelan-Pinon adds.
Mestelan-Pinon explains that not all details of the new regulations can be shared freely with the media or the public. Therefore, the communication may appear somewhat confusing or inconsistent from the outside.
“I understand that some of our manufacturers might not say the same things or share the same information with you. But from our side, we can only say that the regulation is available. If a tuner wants access to it, we can share the regulation with them,” the FIA boss says.
“It’s not freely available, and you cannot upload it to a website because it’s what we call a homologation regulation. To access it, you need to be a manufacturer or a tuner who has already discussed it with us. We don’t want to share it with everyone, as I’m sure you understand.”
