>Maybe 5minutes per stage, then the last 2 stages count as
>10min penalties.
It is 5 minutes a stage.
I dont know what the big deal is. This is top level sport. The #1 factor here is money.
In order to bring in money, and do the promotion thing you need cars on the road. This is a good way to put them back on the road. Everyone has the same rules, so whats the problem?
The WRC isnt rallying from the 1970's, with tulips and 7 day events. It is a commercial and sporting empire, and ISC needs to do what is neccesary to keep the championship exciting and viable.
Ideally, yea, I would prefer 35 competitive WRC entrants in each event so we wouldnt need to re-enter to have enough cars to make it exciting, but we dont have that, so this is a good second best.
From a young-driver standpoint, superally is a mint as crap. I wish RA had superrally (And alot of other stuff, but whatever). It allows one to go flat-out and not worry as much about DNF'ing. You learn faster when you push 100% and you look cooler too.
Perhaps my example above wasnt the best one. Let's not use a top-level driver, lets say your a younger fella with a limited budget driving say, a 2wd GpN car. You have JUST enough money to compete in 4 or so events, and have to impress everyone, and all your marketing partners. You've invited say, 17 VIP's to enjoy the beaches and exciting rally action of Rally Sardinia or something. So you have all these people that came all this way to hobnob and see some action, and alot of $$$$ is on the line, and you lose a coil-pack on stage 3 or some stupid crap.
3 years ago, your done. Everyone go home, and maybe the VIP's wont have as much fun because they were waiting at the speccie area for you to come by, and missed the catered brunch and are grumpy, and now your career is over, etc.. etc..
But of course it works good for top-level guys too. Think of all those french fans that were in Monte Carlo waiting for seb, with their flags and hats, and Viva Le Seb banners and crap. They would all be super bummed if they didnt get to see WRC's new hotness playboy, and might tell their friends "Hey man, we spent all that time to go down to MC and didnt even see seb, sunday was boring as crap, next time, were spending our $$ on F1" or some stupid stuff like that. Then sponsors are like "WTF?" and the fans split, and so on and so forth.
WRC isnt about HUGE endurance and length anymore, that's what rally-raids are for.