MOTORSPORT: WRC enters hybrid era

Hybrid power will up-end the World Rally Championship this year as another top-level motorsport category pivots to petrol-electric power.

The all-new Rally1 contenders from Ford, Hyundai and Toyota promise the fastest cars in WRC history, as well as a new level of safety, complexity and – potentially – unreliability.

As Sebastian Ogier retires from full-time driving in the WRC, season 2022 also promises a great tussle at the top with a new generation of youngsters – led by Kalle Rovanpera at Toyota – looking to upset the existing pecking order.

The technology for Rally1 cars is a common plug-in hybrid package that will be used by all three factory teams in the coming two seasons, although there will be more freedoms from season 2024 to give the car-maker crews more potential for innovation.

The objective is to provide electric-only travel on public roads between the Special Stage action as part of a green-power plan that also includes 100 per cent sustainable fuel for each car’s 1.6-litre turbocharged combustion engine.

All cars will have three driving modes from their plug-in power packs: Full Electric, for maximum battery range and travel through towns and cities; Stage Start, which liberates maximum power including the 100kW electric boost; and Stage, where teams will be able to decide when and how and how often to deploy their hybrid power.

The Rally1 package is not as complicated as the hybrid systems used in Formula One, although they will be wound back in 2026 to try and entice more manufacturers into grand prix racing, but has already led to cars which look radically different with more cooling intakes at the rear and huge aero additions.

Ford has even dumped its traditional rally spearhead, the baby Fiesta, to build its Rally1 package inside the Puma compact crossover SUV.

All three WRC teams have been heavily into pre-season testing ahead of the Monte Carlo Rally which opens the season as usual, from January 21-23, although Hyundai took a big hit when Thierry Neuville crashed and destroyed his i20.

Sebastian Loeb, the veteran nine-times WRC champion, has been testing extensively for Ford and will join the factory team in the Monte, although its new signing Craig Breen will be the full-season spearhead for the blue squad.

The second Seb, eight-times champion Ogier, will also return with Toyota but his Monte start is only part of a part-time season as Welshman Elfyn Evans and Rovanpera do the heavy lifting for the Japanese team.

Apart from Neuville’s crash, Hyundai has also been rocked by the departure of mercurial team boss Andrea Adamo, allegedly after an incident at the team’s race base in Germany, and by delays in production of the team’s cars for the Monte.

Even so, the first round of the WRC promises plenty of questions and the first answers of the hybrid era.