What is a Rally?
The origins of modern day world championship rallying coincide with the invention of the motor car.
Humankind has always had a competitive spirit. It was inevitable that as soon as the possibility of moving from A to B on four wheels arose, one person would want to do it faster than the others!
That’s what world rallying is; moving from one place to another faster than any other person – in the world.
In the “old days” little regard was taken of where such movement occurred. Many of the original “rallies” were more “road races” such as the famous London to Brighton Rally, where cars were timed over the entire distance and the winner was the competitor with the fastest time.
Things have progressed somewhat and rallies now have a tightly controlled format with specific sections (called “special stages”) being reserved for competition, connected together by road or liaison sections.
Preparations for the hard-fought World Rally Championship begin many months before the first rally of the season. The governing body, the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) approves routes, stages and final locations of the 12 rallies around the world, and passes on a copy of the proposals to the major teams.
Each rally must allow two days for the reconnaissance (“recce”), one day for ”Shakedown” (final testing of cars) and Media Conference and three days for competition. The rally typically has between 15 and 25 special stages.
The manufacturer-backed factory teams enter two or three cars each, and arrive on location up to 2 weeks before the start of a rally for on-site preparation. The competing World Rally Cars are seeded and start the event according to their ranking, with the leader of the drivers’ championship setting off first.
Often there are up to 90 cars taking part - the rest of the field made up of the Junior World Championship (smaller, lower-powered cars for younger drivers, though this Championship is not currently part of the Australian event), or the Production Car World Rally Championship and private teams, including local competitors.
The Recce
Driver and co-driver familiarise themselves with the various stages before the start of the event. They drive each special stage twice in a standard road-car (fitted with extra safety equipment) in the two days preceding the rally. It is here that the co-driver writes detailed pace notes for use on the special stages during competition.
The Stages
The special stages are the competitive sections of the rally, where the driver and co-driver drive as fast as possible to achieve the quickest time. They take place on private roads or public roads, which are closed to the general public while the rally is in progress. A typical rally will have between 15 and 25 special stages over three days. The stages are linked by public roads, called road sections, on which competitors must obey all local traffic laws. Each day contains about 350km of driving - a third of which are the competitive special stages. Stages vary in length from five to 60kms, with the cars’ times being recorded after each stage to the tenth of a second. Over the entire event, the special stage distance must total between 340 km and 360 km.
The Clock
Forget about ‘first across the line’. WRC cars don’t race directly against each other. They compete against the toughest opponent of all; time. Cars start at one or two minute intervals, racing against the clock, their times monitored and entered into the FIA computer results system. Unless they run into trouble, rivals rarely see each other during a stage.
How is a winner determined?
Each driver is given a starting signal on a set minute, the signal consisting of an electronic countdown involving a series of lights.
When the start signal is given, the driver takes off from the start of the special stage and proceeds to drive as quickly as possible to the finish of the stage where, as the car passes the “Flying Finish” at full speed, its finish time is recorded as a time of day (in hours, minutes, seconds and tenths of a second). The driver’s time on the stage is then calculated and expressed in minutes, seconds and tenths of a second.
As each stage is conducted, the driver’s times are accumulated and the winner is the driver at the end of the event with the lowest total time.
On the liaison sections (on public roads) crews are given a set amount of time in which to travel these sections, obeying all the speed limits. If the crew is late on one of these sections, because of a mechanical problem or similar, they are penalised at the rate of 10 seconds per minute late. This penalty is added to their total time for the rally and is called a “Road Penalty”. Crews who exceed the posted legal speed limits on the liaison sections not only face the usual civil penalties – the FIA has much harsher penalties which it does not hesitate to impose, and which can involve substantial fines (much larger than civil fines), time penalties and even exclusion from the event.
At the end of an event, the driver who has taken the least amount of time (including any road penalties) to complete all the stages is the winner.
The Points
Results achieved during each of the 12 rallies count towards the two FIA world championships - one for the drivers and one for the manufacturers. The points system for the drivers works as follows:
1st 10 points
2nd 8 points
3rd 6 points
4th 5 points
5th 4 points
6th 3 points
7th 2 points
8th 1 point
A manufacturer can add up the points tally from two nominated cars.
The Time Controls
A rally itinerary is governed by a strict timetable. Drivers get time penalties for being late (or early!) to clock in to the start of the special stage and at the entry and exit of service parks. Late arrival at these controls is typically penalised with 10 seconds on every minute over and is added to the overall time of the driver. Drivers can be excluded from a rally if they are 15 minutes late for a time control, 30 minutes late for a leg or 60 minutes for an entire rally.
The Service Parks
After each group of stages is completed, the cars can visit a designated service park where repairs may be carried out by the teams under strict supervision during a 30-minute time period. At the end of each day the crews are allowed a longer 45-minute period to work on the cars before they are locked away in the guarded ‘parc fermé’ until the following morning’s restart. Crews are punished with time penalties for exceeding these allotted times.
