World Rally Championship drivers are considering boycotting stages they feel are unsafe following the furore over Rally Australia’s night test.Last month’s Coffs Harbour-based event was lambasted by the drivers for what they saw as dangerously dusty conditions on the sole dark stage run in New South Wales.
Rally Australia officials’ admission that they would be repeating the exercise next season drew an angry response from the drivers.
World Rally champion Sebastien Ogier instigated an impromptu meeting between the crews and FIA president Jean Todt in Corsica earlier this month.
Topics discussed included concerns over competing after-dark on hot gravel rallies and the lack of a monsoon-style emergency wet weather tyre for asphalt.
Citroen’s Kris Meeke welcomed the opportunity to talk to the president in person, but said boycotts remained an option.
“I’m not about to start saying who will and who won’t start a stage or what might happen,” said Meeke.
“As drivers, we are employees and we’ll talk to our employer about this.
“We’ll be sensible, we’ll get together and we’ll work this out. And talking to Jean Todt was, as always, very useful.
“But, if somebody could give me one, just one, single thing that stage added to Rally Australia, I’d be very interested to hear it.
“And then I’ll give them 10 reasons why it was stupid. I’ve heard some ridiculous arguments about fog being the same, it’s not.
“It’s the premeditated nature of the argument in Australia that gets me – they knew there would be dust and they sent us in anyway.
“If they try it [in 2016], I think there might be some red faces…”
That stance was backed by the team principals, with Volkswagen’s Jost Capito saying: “If something is not safe then I won’t let out drivers out and, for me, the night stage doesn’t add anything but risk.
“The spectators don’t see anything, the TV is nothing, and we don’t get the press release out [in time].
“This is nothing against night stages, it’s the dust in the darkness – that is irresponsible.”
Todt underlined safety was the FIA’s priority but wanted to investigate if the Australia situation was as bad as drivers had described.
“We must do as much as we can do be as safe as it can be,” he said.
“Times have changed and this is a good thing. The situation is much safer [now], but never as safe as we want it to be.
“If it is true that after five minutes it was blocked with dust [in Australia], this is not acceptable.
“But if it’s not like this then I will encourage more organisers to run the night stages.”
He remained resolute in his support for the concept of night stages and longer days.
“I love motorsport and rallying and I don’t dream about starting at nine o’clock [in the morning] until one, when you stop for lunch, then leave at three and be back at seven before dinner,” Todt said.
Rally fans tell WRC drivers to ‘harden up’ over night stage boycott
A story in the UK weekly, Autosport, that World Rally Championship drivers would consider boycotting night stages in future WRC rounds has resulted in a wave of criticism from RallySport Magazine readers.
Voila to Valla from Oz rally expert
Peter Whitten, the editor of Australia’s RallySportMagazine, says the Rally Australia organisers should “stand their ground” and retain a night stage as the event’s point of difference in the WRC.
“Rally Australia’s night stage was a tremendous spectacle that was loved by every spectator we spoke to and provided a real special touch for the event – something that many spectators had never experienced before,” Whitten wrote in what he called his post-event “ramblings”.
“Of course, many of the drivers whinged about the dust and that they were disadvantaged … the same drivers who may well complain about the pea-soup fog that could descend on [the season-ending] Wales Rally GB in November.
“They need to get over it.
“The sport is about the atmosphere, the theatre and the fans, not just about prima donna drivers who think every road should be swept clean before they arrive and that conditions should be perfect from start to finish.
“Even former world champion co-driver Robert Reid [now an FIA steward] loved the night stage, and was quite rightly disappointed by comments from Sebastien Ogier and Kris Meeke at the end of it.
“The stage didn’t decide the rally and let’s hope it returns again next year.
“The organisers should stand their ground and push to retain the event’s point of difference.
“[But] a tarmac night stage on gravel tyres could work just as well, eliminating the dust element and giving the fans another look at bright lights and glowing brake discs as the cars rocket down the road past their vantage points.
“So far, our Facebook post has been seen by well over 7000 people.”