World Champions Volkswagen don’t like it, but the banning of in-car split times for the 2015 World Rally Championship is, in my eyes, a great thing.
Split-timing will be banned for the 2015 World Rally Championship.Over the past few seasons, teams have supplied crews with split times via text message, allowing them to monitor gaps to their rivals and increase or decrease their speed accordingly.
But this will not be the case in 2015. FIA rally director, Jarmo Mahonen, believes this is damaging the WRC's spectacle and wants harsh punishments.
"What we'll try to achieve is that they don't control the drivers so much," he told Autosport magazine.
"When the top drivers get big gaps they start to cruise and control the gap and this takes away the interest.
"Of course we cannot police this 100 per cent, but the consequence will be a big enough deterrent.
"If you get caught, you can be excluded from the championship. The manufacturers will not take the risk."
VW’s Jost Capito, on the other hand, thinks it’s a stupid idea, claiming that it’s uncontrollable and impossible to police.
Split timing was first seen in the WRC in the 2000s, before technology allowed in-car messages to crews. In those days, team members stood mid-stage with stopwatches and held up signs showing the gap to the cars in front of them.
In 2015, however, it will be a thing of the past. With only two world champions in the past 11 years, the WRC needs every boost of entertainment and excitement that it can get, and if banning split-timing helps that, then I’m all for it.
The WRC has become sanitised and stale over recent years, and anything that is seen to help give the championship back some of its mojo should be welcomed with open arms.
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