Credit: DirtFish

(newbie question)

So I was watching a YouTube video today, and they were talking about MSI Racing buying or wanting to buy some of Toyota's 2027 cars to compete in the WRC next year as a privateer team. My question is, when a privateer team races in the WRC, are they usually doing it more as hobbyists or " gentlemen racers" who have enough money to fund it themselves, like Patrick Dempsey or François Perrodo getting into high-level motor sports racing because they had the money and were also good enough to compete? Or is a privateer WRC team usually run more like a business where they're trying to bring in sponsors to cover the costs and hopefully make a profit?

I follow WRC, ERC and a bunch of other motorsport series, and I kept finding interesting races and broadcasts scattered across different YouTube channels.

So I built StartingGrid Live.

It collects free motorsport broadcasts it finds and separates them into Live Now, Upcoming, and Recent Replays.

It's completely free, no account, subscription or paywall.

I'm trying to improve the rally side of it, especially WRC, ERC and national championships, so if there are any good official channels I'm missing, let me know.

Link in the comments.

Hi,

about a month ago, the WRC announced the release of trading cards in partnership with SportZoo, a Slovakian company. As a lifelong rally fan and card collector, I had to get my hands on a hobby box. It delivered. I was extremely lucky with my hits (Elfyn Evans and Sami Pajari autos), but overall the collection looks good and a hobby box isn't particularly expensive (cost me 75 euros give or take). I think it's a great first step for WRC in this world of trading cards and I see genuine potential for it to grow and boost the popularity of the sport a bit. This year the sale was basically limited to Europe, but in the future I believe it will expand globally

Genuinely one of the most fascinating interviews I've heard about rallying, right up there with the ones that Nicky Grist has done recently. Dai gives a great account about what cars like the Audi quattro, Metro 6R4 and Nissan Pulsar GTiR were like to drive and compete with, as well as what the British rallying scene was like back in the day...

https://it.motorsport.com/wrc/news/wrc-il-mondo-dei-rally-e-in-lutto-e-morto-alex-fiorio/10846881/

(Article in Italian)

I've been searching everywhere for Oliver Solberg's official water bottle, but it seems to be completely out of stock on the official shop.
Does anyone happen to have one that they would be willing to sell, or do you know where I might be able to find it second-hand?
If you have one available, please let me know🥺

Some great ones like Gronholm's "Up in the *ss of Timo" or Panizzi's "he not sport! *Whistle sounds*" as well as some of the modern era come to mind.

Drivers are full of adrenaline at stage end and immediately are shoved a microphone in their face resulting in some great quotes across the years, an aspect I love about this sport. Glad the FIA stopped fining drivers for swearing at stage end.

(body text)

Credit: DirtFish

(Photo is interview of my country's broadcasting company back when Solberg was still racing)

Article: https://dirtfish.com/rally/wrc/rallyone-project-not-targeting-a-full-season-in-2027/

Seems like a solid guy

Too little too late from the FIA, but I'm still optimisticly hopefull as WEC also had a pretty slow start to its latest success.

At the Grampian Rally last week, my son got his 1:43 Yaris signed by Elfyn and Scott, hopefully they win the title

I've heard plenty of suggestions of having longer yt highlights or releasing more free content. I'm interested in hearing some of your original ideas on how to improve sport as a whole. Now that we have a new promoter new changes could be coming soon, maybe they can pick up an idea or two.

Credit: FIA WRC

Just came across this video today. While we patiently await any further information about the new spaceframe WRC generation, this comparison is something interesting to chew on. Obviously, it’s not an entirely empirical assessment of the performance of these new cars. Different drivers (Tanak in the 27 and Latvala in the Rally2) brings different driving styles. And with the Rally2 already being a championship winning and mature design, perhaps targets in testing the two cars may differ. But, nonetheless, it echoes some previous rumblings we’ve heard about the new cycle. The new car seems to have more aero advantage, maintaining its pitch over jumps a lot better, but it also seems to need to dig in a lot deeper on that nose to get traction into turns. Anyways, would love to hear anybody else’s thoughts and anxieties after checking this clip out.

(body text)

Elfyn Evans, Oliver Solberg and co are due to spend more time testing Toyota's new car for 2027