There were perhaps only two words mentioned more than 'Martins' and 'Sesks' when the World Rally Championship visited Latvia last weekend, and those were 'road position'.
Championship leader Thierry Neuville reignited a debate surrounding how the WRC determines the road order for rallies. The very nature of rallying means that someone is always going to be disadvantaged by road position.
For gravel rallies, being first to tackle the stages is costly on the timing screens unless the weather intervenes, while being first on the road for asphalt events is often seen as an advantage as the roads often become dirtier and slower with every pass as gravel is dragged out from cuts.
Under the current regulations, the championship leader is required to open the roads on the first day of competition which is designed to level the playing field and create a closer championship battle by preventing the leader from running away aided by a favourable road position. The road order is then flipped for the second leg using the finishing positions from the first day.
In Latvia, road order frustrations bubbled to the surface, led by Neuville, who feels it's time for the regulations to change.
"Why I should have the pain in the ass all weekend, all year long," said Neuville. "We did a great job in the beginning of the year, and now there's no reward at all.
"We could have, whoever it is, Ott, Elfyn or myself, the winner of the championship at the end of the year winning maybe one rally. When [Sebastien] Ogier was opening the road there was some tarmac rally in the middle of the gravel rallies, and now we have seven gravel rallies in a row, what can you do?
"Even with a 40-point lead, there's no way to keep those points, so we have to fight."
Latvia created a perfect storm for this outburst as unusually only three of the 15 stages across Friday and Saturday were repeated making the road cleaning effect worse. Most WRC events operate loops of three or four stages that are repeated reducing the damage of road cleaning.
To further exacerbate this road cleaning phenomenon was the fact that four of the 10 car Rally1 field were part-time drivers meaning those quartet benefitted from favourable road positions compared to the full-time drivers due to their position in the championship.
This is not the first time this debate has reared its head as eight-time world champion Sebastien Ogier during his era of dominance fought to change the rules for many years but subsequently lost. So, is it time to rethink how the road order is determined?
Re-introducing the qualifying stage was a hot topic in Latvia. The European Rally Championship, also operated by the WRC Promoter, runs a qualifying stage. Last year the fastest 15 drivers from the Qualifying Stage selected their starting position for leg one with the fastest qualifier picking first followed by the remaining 15 drivers.
This year the rules have been tweaked with the fastest drivers from the stage starting in that order for asphalt rallies or flipped for gravel rallies.
A similar system was in place in the WRC from 2012-2013 before it was scrapped following the dominance of Ogier in 2013.
But among the teams, views are indeed divided as to whether WRC should consider a change of rules.
Hyundai – Full-time drivers should be rewarded more
Hyundai has supported the view of its lead driver Neuville, but team principal Cyril Abiteboul says the problem is more complex than just finding a solution to reward the championship leader more in terms of road position.
The former Renault Formula 1 boss believes that the increase in part-time drivers, with Toyota now fielding two multiple world champions in some events, in addition to the new points system that has decreased the value of an overall win, has exacerbated the road order dilemma.
"I think we have a perfect storm right now between a situation with part-time drivers, which is not in our hands, which is in Toyota's hands, our main competitor. It's a disadvantage for the drivers' championship, but it's clearly an advantage on the manufacturer championship," said Abiteboul.
"We have a regulation that doesn't really impose any sort of nomination of permanent drivers so that could be the first thing that could be very easily fixed, just a word change in the regulations.
"We have also a situation of a calendar which has a sequence of gravel events. And ultimately maybe we also need also to look into a qualifying stage, but we should not be looking into that in isolation. If we do something, we need also to connect that to the points system. It's a whole package, I think sometimes in motorsport and maybe a bit more so in rally we still need to grow in maturity and in ability to address complex situations.
"I think we do have this year a system that is causing a lot of frustration for very committed drivers like Thierry and Ott, and I think that we should reward a little bit more the commitment and reward more the win and the risks that are being taken.
"In Latvia, there is no real fight and why? It is because the win is not really rewarded and win for whoever is not opening the road is not really possible and having no fight, no risk and therefore little mistake. If you seem there's been very few mistakes done this weekend and I think it's down to that situation, which ultimately is not good for the fan."
Toyota – Qualifying hinders development of young drivers
Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala is firmly against bringing back qualifying and for one simple reason it can hamper the development of young talent, especially when testing is heavily restricted.
While he understands why the top drivers are frustrated by the penalty of having to open the road due to their success in previous events, he feels qualifying would put too much pressure on young drivers trying to develop and make the leap into the top class.
"It is not good for the young drivers. I know the top drivers hate being first car on the road," said Latvala.
"These days it is so limited with testing so how can you come and show you your potential, it is impossible.
"It has been in the World Rally Championship that somebody will suffer, and it is the fastest guy that needs to pay a little bit of a penalty for one day. It has always been like that."
M-Sport- Ford – Qualifying could have robbed WRC of Sesks story
M-Sport shares Latvala's view that the current road order system doesn't require change but the Ford squad's team principal Richard Millener says that the WRC must remember it is an entertainment business.
Millener feels that had there been qualifying in Latvia it could have robbed the WRC of Martins Sesks incredible fight for a podium in only his second Rally1 start. Granted if qualifying was in place there is still a good chance Sesks would have earned a top road position such was the speed he delivered.
"We should keep exactly what we have got. If you put in qualifying or have the road order swapping around there is a 90% chance this whole Sesks story wouldn't have happened," said Millener.
"Yes, I get it Thierry has had a tough weekend it has not been easy for him, but he is still leading the championship. As Kalle [Rovanpera] and Elfyn [Evans] said winning a championship isn't easy. Everyone has been in that position.
"We have to step away from what the teams want, they just what to win. The fans love what we have, the battle is close. We're an entertainment business and we have got a fantastic championship going on, so some people will win some people will lose out."
Autosport says
As the opinions above have shown the topic is a divisive one among the teams. The bottom line at the moment is the WRC has a thrilling title race on its hands with the top three covered by 13 points. The title fight is indeed exciting, but it is difficult to know if that outcome has been determined more by road position, the effect of part-time drivers or the new points system.
There is no doubt qualifying is probably the fairest way to determine road order for the championship's top drivers and it could provide the WRC with a new product to market to new fans. For example in Formula 1 qualifying is often more exciting than the races themselves and it could draw an audience.
The fans also do want to see the best drivers battling against each other for the top positions which at the moment is rarely seen. On the other hand, this then opens a Pandora's Box scenario where a driver could dominate and the championship could be over way before the end of the season.
Latvala and Millener have pointed out it qualifying would make life tougher to blood young talent and fresh faces are what the WRC is crying out for. Sesks' is the perfect example of that, his performances in Poland and Latvia were gripping to follow and drew people to the WRC.
As much as I would love to see how qualifying could work in today's WRC, perhaps the easiest fix right now is to ensure the championship leader is rewarded more by a calendar where a couple of asphalt events can split up the current run of seven consecutive gravel rallies.
