Thierry Neuville fears that the present Rally2 cars will likely be faster than the top-class cars under the brand new technical regulations of the 2027 World Rally Championship.

From 2027, the top-class WRC cars will likely be more versatile and built at a value of €345,000 to encourage more teams and manufacturers to compete.

The cars will even be much closer to the present Rally2 cars, powered by a Rally2 engine and equipped with a Rally2 braking system and gearbox. Motorsport.com understands that the speed of the 2027 cars will likely be slower than in the present Rally1 and closer to the pace of the top-class WRC cars from 2012-2016.

“The basis of what they want to create is interesting, but I'm really worried about the Rally2 cars running in the new Rally1 cars,” Neuville said when asked by Motorsport.com concerning the recent rules at a media roundtable on the Monza Rally Show.

“How will you deal with the national championship? You can have Rally2 cars going faster than the brand new Rally1 cars. When you begin on the road from second or third place, and older cars start from forty fifth, the privateer will go faster than the official driver.

Neuville can be frustrated by the indisputable fact that drivers are unable to contribute by having a representative on the FIA's technical working group.

“I will send an email to the FIA ​​because I think we have had a lot of discussions about this with the drivers in general,” Neuville said.

“The proposal is interesting, but we usually are not satisfied because we proposed to have one driver within the technical working group they usually never agreed to place one in every of the drivers within the group. I believe we even have a whole lot of interesting information, but they simply didn't want it. That's why we mainly voted no, however the proposal is interesting.”

Thierry Neuville, Martijn Wydaeghe, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1

Photo: Austral / Hyundai Motorsport

Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala also shares Neuville's concerns, stating that top-class WRC cars must be not less than one second per kilometer faster than their Rally 2 counterparts.

“[Rally1 and Rally2 cars] they get quite close to each other. I think that's the goal,” Latvala said. “The FIA ​​desires to bring them together to assist young drivers get into the game. But surely there should be a difference.

“We need to make certain that we proceed to keep up the gap between the cars. The point is, in the event that they're too close, why buy the Rally1 when the Rally2 is already so fast? So he won't bring privateers to Rally1 cars. So there should be a difference.

“For me, Rally 1 needs to be not less than one second per kilometer faster than Rally 2. Now [with current Rally1 cars] I believe it's about two seconds per kilometer depending on the situation we're in; sometimes it may possibly be two and a half on the asphalt, I believe. But the goal is one second.

A lost opportunity to develop recent technologies

While Neuville admits the brand new regulations are “interesting”, he believes the FIA ​​has missed the chance for the WRC to offer manufacturers with a platform to develop recent technologies that could be applied to road cars.

“We [at Hyundai] they are developing brake-by-wire, steering-by-wire and steering gear shifting systems, and are working on active suspension; soon all [road] the cars will have active suspension,” he added.

“We have to create this platform to develop lively suspension on gravel, snow and asphalt. Why don't we take this chance with manufacturers to develop the technology, to benefit from the chance to show engineers in real competitions how one can develop this stuff? we’ll support manufacturers to develop recent technologies and improve them, but in the intervening time we’re doing the alternative.

“In Japan, we met with 45 engineers from Hyundai's R&D center, they asked us some questions, but we told them: 'we will't allow you to because we don't have any of those technologies in our cars.'

“These R&D centers spend hundreds of millions on technology development and it takes them time because they don't have the great capabilities that we have. It's frustrating. It doesn't have to be expensive to develop an active suspension; I bought a new car two weeks ago and I have it in my road car.”