With the new WRC regulation for 2017, the cars are expected to produce more power and in turn there will significance increase in speeds...
With the new WRC regulation for 2017, the cars are expected to produce more power and in turn there will significance increase in speeds. But the tyres could hold back the cars from reaching its potential speeds. There have been already concerns about increase in speed, but now tyre manufactures for WRC, that is Michelin and DMACK are forced to redesign the tyres for new 2017 cars.
DMACK managing director Dick Cormack said, the increase in power means there will be much higher tyre wear. And if they make changes to tyre to lasts long, it will reduce grip level and limit speeds. Cormack said, "Michelin and us are aware there will be a significant increase in the level of wear, particularly on gravel. That means a compound and possibly even a pattern change to deal with that. If we increase the tread width, that will give the tyre more life, but at the same time you really need to reduce the gap between the tread blocks and inevitably that's going to reduce the grip."
Dick Cormack fears that it will make it even tougher for championship leader who will open the road. He further said, "On a clean line the drivers will still get compound grip, but for the driver first on the road, it looks like there could be even less grip next year." The new rule about limiting a driver to use only one set of tyres for each day of WRC round has also been discussed, but Cormack was not happy about that. He said, "There's a difference between the endurance side of this sport and world championship rallying. The WRC is about going as fast as you can on every stage and running one set per day would really compromise that. These cars cost £450,000 each and the topic of conversations is about saving £250 on a tyre - it doesn't seem to make sense."
So there are few issues to be met with before 2017 cars hit the roads, will these be sorted out? Lets wait and watch. For more news on happenings in the world of rally, subscribe to us on bottom of the page. Until then, Happy Rallying!
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