As I wrote yesterday, the rotation system of the WRC calendar may be one of the reasons why the Swedish Rally have to cut down and in worst case risk bankruptcy. But why was the system introduced? FIAs reasons for introducing the system was to get more events into the championship, but they made a mistake. The events that has gotten into the calendar in recent years, like Norway, Portugal, Jordan and others have all ran candidate events and paid big money to be allowed to do so. So one day FIA realised that they had practically sold out places in the WRC, because the organisers really expected to get a place in the championship. That’s where the rotation system started…
In my opinion the WRC needs high quality events, not a big number of events. We all know that the quality of the current events differ much. I wont name good or bad – since I don’t always agree with the measures used. Driver bash some events, FIA bash others. The drivers most often want perfect conditions, while FIA want strange things such as media stands fitted exactly – on the centimeter – right according to their rules. Sponsors and spectators want events with spectacular conditions and big drama. This doesn’t always match the will of FIA, ISC or drivers. The ranking system needs to be improved – and then maybe the two worst events in years calendar can placed on a special list for a few years, with the potential of replacing it (after a few years) if it doesn’t get better. Potential new events could still be ran as candidate events, but never with a guarantee of getting into the championship. That would give organisers continuity but still keep a good opening of getting in new events.
I don’t have the perfect answer to this, but I know that selling out events in the championship to anyone willing to pay is stupid. Really stupid.
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Tags: calendar, event, isc, quality, rally jordan, rally norway, rally of portugal, rotatation, WRC
[...] candidate events to the left and right by just paying a big fee to them (read more in my post on the rotation system from last year). After the organisers have paid those fees, they of course expected to get an event [...]