WRC moves ahead with several championship changes

The FIA has implemented some hybrid unit limitations for the World Rally Championship (WRC) for the 2024 season, whilst also awarding Hankook tyres a three year tenure from 2025 to take over from Pirelli.

Amongst the FIA’s move to limit the amount of hybrid units and to give Hankook the tyre 2025 tyre tenure, the WRC will also make a change to the championship points system in 2024.

With costs for teams since the implementation of Rally1 in 2021 always on the agenda, the move has been made by the FIA World Council to limit the amount of hybrid power units available for the three WRC Rally1 teams with a maximum of three-per car to be available in 2024.

It means that teams will have to more closely monitor the reliability of their hybrid components, with the number of available units reduced from the nine that teams could access over the past two seasons.

WRC teams will be restricted to three Rally1 hybrid power units in 2024. Image: M-Sport

There is also a scheduled change to the points system for the 2024 which will be announced in the coming weeks, with the expected changes to offer more championship points for the Sunday stages.

Quite often a driver with a comfortable lead can afford to back off, but the extra points are intended to provide extra incentive to push the limits, such as those that are offered in the final Power Stage.

Finally, with Pirelli’s 2021-2024 Rally1 tyre contract having expired, Hankook has won the tenure from the start of the 2025 season with a three year deal.

They will supply the field from Rally1, through to the WRC2, WRC3 and FIA Junior WRC.

In rally circles in 2023, Hankook supplied the tyres for the Junior WRC as well as the European Rally Championship, whilst globally, the South Korean based company were involved in over 50 series’.

Pirelli announced earlier in 2023 that it will not make a bid to continue its tenure.

Hankook will join the WRC as its official tyre supplier with a three-year deal starting in 2025.

The Milan based company wasn’t without its detractors during its time in the WRC, most notably from rally legend and eight time world champion Sebastien Ogier.

He launched a scathing attack on the Pirelli WRC tyre, labelling the quality of the tyre as “shitty”, whilst adding that drivers were too afraid to speak up about it, with the season being littered with plenty of unexplainable tyre punctures.

“Maybe one day we will finally talk about their shitty work. Maybe it will help turn things around, but right now it’s just a joke…It’s a lottery,” Ogier said in Japan at the time.

“It’s really annoying that nobody talks about this problem with Pirelli. Their work is a joke. This is not serious. There are punctures everywhere, all the time.”

Pirelli initially left the WRC in 2011 when Michelin took over, before winning a four year tenure from the start of the Rally1 era in 2021.

The 2024 season kicks off in the Monegasque French Southern Alps for the 92nd Rallye Monte-Carlo on January 24-28.

Check out the next issue (#1876) of AUTO ACTION for a full review on the 2023 WRC season.

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