WRC, similar to F1, could introduce an online radio communication system between crews and engineers – Motor sports – Sportacentrs.com

Professional road racing uses a pit-to-car radio communication system that allows spectators to hear what the teams and their drivers are saying. Given the popularity and spread of such radio news among F1 fans, the WRC is now hoping to replicate something similar in its own championship. It is known that already at the Portuguese WRC rally, work will begin with a specialist consultant to carry out further research.

During the rally, engineers don’t have much to do between the service parks, but that could change if the WRC host’s new concept is implemented and teams have access to real-time telemetry.

“This is an area and an element that I think we can work on better. We can highlight it more. The relationship between the rider and his engineer is something that we lack and that other sports manage better,” says Dirtfish WRC Promoter Racing Director Simon Larkin.

“We have a new concept for next year that we are working on with the teams and the manufacturers to get more data from the cars, more live information between the crews and their teams. Right now my rental car has better connectivity than these very expensive rally cars.”

Elaborating further, Larkin specifically mentioned F1 and the relationship between Max Verstappen and his race engineer, which has sometimes come to a standstill mid-race. “You know what I really like about F-1? The power. When Verstappen gets his 150th win and he’s communicating with his engineer, that discussion is funny at times. We need those little things. That interaction between the driver and his engineer in transit, discussing this and that, is interesting for all of us. It’s a good start.”

The proposal does not currently have manufacturers’ consent, but the WRC organizer plans to offer Rally1 teams access to telemetry data in exchange for the ability to transmit radio communications, which would mark a step forward from the current system where data is only downloaded from cars when they are in the service park .

“We think what we can offer teams is to give them more online data like oil pressure, water pressure, tire pressure monitoring system,” Larkin continues. “There’s a lot of things that happen to these cars sometimes that could probably be avoided to keep them running if only they could do different things during the sprints or overpasses.”

“There’s a better technological story that we can tell about these cars and what’s in them. We can do more live. We have multiple engineers attached to each car. Each car leaves the service area at 7:30 in the morning and the engineers then there’s no data from the car until the car comes back to the service park and the engineers can plug the USB stick into the car to read the data. And I think it can help build and tell stories.”