hatchback

The Mitsubishi Lancer Evo8 and Subaru Imprezza WRX STi are generating a lot of excitment in the automotive press and among auto enthusiasts such as ourselves. At least part of the excitment is due to the allegedly spectacular performance of these two vehicles in the World Rally Championship. Yet a quick check of the latest results on wrc.com shows that these cars are not even close to competitive any more. Take a look at results->championshipstandings->manufacturers and profiles->cars.

The Subaru Imprezza (13 pts) is well behind the Citroen Xsara (39 pts), Peugeot 206 (31 pts) and Ford Focus (25 pts) in the current WRC competition and only slightly ahead of the Skoda Octavia (6 pts) and Hyundai Accent (3 pts). The wrc.com description of the Imprezza makes it sound like a mechanical nightmare.

The Mitsubishi Evo8 has not been competitive since 1999, and it is now so far behind the competition that Mitsubishi decided to take the current year off from WRC competition. To quote: "The Lancer has never been an easy car to drive. A unique drivetrain arrangement means that it becomes a two-wheel drive car whenever it is not either braking or on full throttle, a characteristic that can make the car very unstable but also more on the limit than most."

So why are these two obsolete World Rally Championship cars generating so much excitement today? And if the Evo8 is so great, why did Mitsubishi drop out of the WRC?

Pimpson

look at the competion, the xsare, peug, and focus are two door, little guys. The sti and evo are based off the 4 door versions, they have weight and aerodynamics against them.

They used to just be able to over power competition and have the superior drivetrains...but now anybody can copy what they've been doing for 8 years and put it in a smaller package.

Mitsu will be back with a 2 door pocket Evo

drmosh

It's a good point you brought this up. I can't speak for but I have followed Subaru in the WRC for a while. I think the new generation cars are doing better in the WRC just because they are that, new generation automobiles. The Impreza design hasn't really fundamentally changed in years. The Citreon, Peugot, and Focus are relatively new platforms and thus optimized for such handling of such courses. Another thing is, if you follow WRC closely, you will see how these cars handle on various terrains. The Subaru still handles really awesome on wet tarmac and picks up most of it's points there.

Those are just my observations.

LanEvo

u konw the asnwer dude

they didn't "drop out" but "took a break" to the mountains to completely redeign the team and car instead of just updating everytime...

besides good road car != good race car

BMWs are getting their tails chased and maybe beaten (i have no REAL konwledge so idk) by honda integras and mazda 323 (?) in GT races...

s4awd

That's a silly question....They are generating excitement because they are actually selling them!!! Last time I looked, I haven't seen any AWD turbocharged Peugeot 206's or a Ford Focus with AWD and a turbo. (Ford UK is not bringing the front wheel drive RS here either). And the Citroen Xsara? The real car is a joke. They should bring Group A back. To force these manufacturers to actually make the cars and sell them. Remember the Celica All-Trac Turbo? Subaru and Mitsubishi are the only two left selling their WRC based cars to the public. The great thing, is that they don't even have to but they continue to do so for car maniacs like us. I just hope WRC doesn't turn into NASCAR by having their cars turn into circus freaks. It's beginning though. Look at the Subaru Impreza WRC. Those fender flares are getting pretty big there.

dlowman

Mitz is discontinuing the EVo in Europe and replacing it with a new platform. That new platform will also replace the evo as their ralley car.

LanEvo

jeff gordon revealed that many NASCAR drivers watch WRC on speed

well toyota DID attempted to bring an all-trac to the new celica but the transmission don't fit good i think

shirokuma

What makes the Evo and STi less competitive in WRC is making them more competitive on the road - longer wheelbases, bigger bodies, more features.

And unless the lot of you start driving exclusively on the dirt in rallies, I doubt anybody would want to have a car that *is* better for WRC at the expense of tarmac worthiness.

Cheers,

Paul Hansen

flybyevo

I watched the Turkey WRC rally on speedvision recently and one of the announcers caught my ear when he said that Mitsubishi's new car would be ready in July. I could be wrong but at least that is what I thought he said.... Keep the shiney side up...

bri'sevo

when you get down to it the reason the peugot are killin it is due to their short wheel base and superior handling characteristics...just like shiro said...engine trans and drivetrain dont really matter since wheelbase is key to handling. i bet the new mitsu will get us back on top..so, should i wait for the road version of that car..j/k..

hatchback

Contrary to shirokuma's post, the current WRC leader (the Citroen Xsara) was designed principly to be fast on asphalt, so it should be even better than the Evo8 as a road car.

To quote: "Predictably the Xsara demolished the opposition in France in 2000, no surprise given that the purposeful and compact car already had many thousands of asphalt testing mileage under its belt after a year of thrashing round Citroen's private stages. With the French championship being an all-asphalt affair and with so much testing behind it, everyone expected the Citroen to be a contender for victory on the three asphalt WRC rallies it contested in 2001. So it proved, Philippe Bugalski and Jesus Puras running one-two in Catalunya until mechanical problems intervened."

http://www.wrc.com/en_GB/Profiles/Ca...+Xsara+WRC.htm

iodine23

iTrader: (1)

It's not just the car, but also the driver and the *team* too. If they program the ECU wrong, pick the wrong tires, just set the car up wrong, then the team won't be competitive. Look at Subaru last year. IIRC they said on one WRC broadcast that they lost a lot of engineers on the team before last season. So even though they picked up Tommi, they didn't win much. He crashed out of a bunch of rallies and the ones he competed in he wasn't very competitive (besides the opener in Monaco, of course).

The car does have a lot to do with it, and those Pugs are truly tiny. You can't really understand just how small they are until you see it in person. They had to add big front and rear bumpers to bring it up to spec lengthwise. It's a 2door hatch, not a 4 door sedan.

The WRC cars are still based on road cars... see the current SCC article about Prodrive. See the lot of many plain white WRX STis parked in a lot waiting to be transformed into WRC cars. Platform development is no simple or cheap task. The rally shops rely on an established platform as their basis to build a WRC.

And just because Mitsubishis aren't in WRC this year doesn't mean they aren't competing or competitive in other classes. It seems like about 99% of Group N is Evos. At least it seemed that way at Rally GB last year. I'm sure there's tons of Evos in Group N again this year.

mrmefodman

iTrader: (1)

bump for new results

secretpickle

Where can you find video of any of these events? I remember watching a WRC video a while back but didn't see any Evo. Still an awesome video. What's group N?

trinydex

iTrader: (12)

i agree with making the cars and selling them...

also the new rules are more lax... you can have anything running that barely resembles the real thing.

also keep in mind that the other manufacturers besides ford which is only doing well cuz they have a superbly setup car and some fantastic drivers, all have more than one car competing and are so firmly invested in the wrc that money is absolutely not an object.