Capito urges WRC to retain technical rules

Volkswagen Motorsport director Jost Capito believes the next generation of World Rally Cars should stay close to the current technical regulations.

The existing technical framework is fixed until the end of 2016 and talks between the sport’s heads opened last month, with a view to firming up the way forward from 2017 by the end of this year.

“There should be minimum changes to what we have now,” Capito said. “One reason is to keep all the manufacturers and teams who are in the championship now.

“The cars are very close in performance, the costs are reasonable and there is no reason to change the technical regulations because they are really good.”

There have been calls for the headline category to adopt R5 cars, which now compete in the WRC 2 support series, as a cheaper alternative to the current World Rally Cars but Capito doesn’t believe this would work.

“I think following the R5 route would destroy that category. If R5 would be the main category in WRC, manufacturers would find a way to improve the cars and they would beat the privateers all the time.

“Then the privateers would not drive for the whole championship. I think the WRC should be always something special and different to what is seen as a customer category,” he added.

Volkswagen last week confirmed it planned to stay in WRC until the end of 2019 but the German manufacturer does not have a R5 car. Skoda, a Volkswagen subsidiary, is developing a Fabia R5 which is expected to be ready by the second half of 2015.

M-Sport’s Ford Fiesta R5 has been in action for almost 12 months, while the delayed Citroen and Peugeot R5 cars debuted in WRC 2 at Rally Italia Sardegna earlier this month.