Today’s big news seems to have been the new format of the ADAC Rallye Deutschland, where the Baumholder stage will be 48 km’s – to be compared with the previously longest stage of the event, 30 km. The first thing that comes to my mind is Rally Mexico in 2005, where Loeb and Gardemeister had one stunning fight on the last stage of the rally. At the very last and very long stage, Alfaro (44.38 km), Loeb took back 40.1 seconds in an unbelievable drive that pipped the finn on his fourth position sending him back to fifth. That was one of the coolest events that year in the WRC, in my opinion.

I’m not sure if a long stage like Baumholder is stunning news, but there’s an interesting principle in it because it’s fun, and most important; it’s allowed. In the last years we’ve seen some comebacks of stuff associated with ralling in the past, that brings diversity to the WRC. Previously, the FIA and rights holders have seemed to pack everything together to one streamlined package by stipulating some stupid rules, making each and every rally as similar to the other ones as possible. Now they’re slowly switching to another way, that organisers should be free to bring more personality to events. One thing is the possibility to run night stages, one thing is the new thing that an event can be run over 2,3 or 4 days and another one is that the total distance of special stages now can be between 300 and 500 km’s with no upper limit on a special stage’s length – more than that it can’t be more than 80 km’s of competitive stages between services.

All those things opens up for a better WRC, where Monte Carlo for example can run their classic night stages, where Germany can have the Baumholder stage and where organisers can profile themselves with a short, intensive 2 day rally – or a marathon rally with 4 days. To bring back old stuff doesn’t at all mean you take a step back, I think this is a perfect step forward where modern stuff like super special stages, stages run twice and other things can be combined with the old classic’s thats deeply rooted in the minds of many fans. Thumbs up to FIA for finally taking some actions to improve the championship!